


Yours & Mine

by yourpricelessadvice (orphan_account)



Series: Lovehearts [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, Established Relationship, F/F, Fluff, Genderswap, Girl Direction, I'm not tagging the rare pair as I don't want to ruin the surprise!, Lesbian Character, Rare Pairings, Smut, sixth form AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-29
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-04-14 12:36:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 40,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14136177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/yourpricelessadvice
Summary: Growing up the only girl in a house full of pain in the arse, nosy and interfering little brothers made Louis hardened and resistant from an early age. She doesn’t need to worry about them stealing her stuff or borrowing her clothes – not that it’d be a problem if one of them did want a dress - but each one of them seems to make it their priority each day to do something to annoy her.The twins are okay, she supposes. They’re only eight and still quite cute, but the other two? Whole other story.It used to feel like the only person she could turn to was her mum, the only two girls in a sea of boys. But then a certain curly haired angel named Harry landed in her life and she had one more person to turn to; a best friend, a confidant and love of her life all rolled into one.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is an extremely self-indulgent, ridiculously fluffy piece that escalated from my initial ideas and became 40k! In this story, the five of them are all girls and HL’s siblings are all (unnamed) boys, so needless to say it’s entirely AU. All other background characters are as they are in ‘real life’. There is a rare pair too that I’ve left untagged as a surprise!
> 
> So for warning/triggers: talk of periods and a brief and non-descriptive throwaway comment about pregnancy/childbirth (there are no babies). They’re all 17 for the sake of the story, which is safely above the age of consent in the UK. There is no time frame for this verse; in my head it's around 2011-12 but that's questionable.
> 
> Title is from The Passenger by Iggy Pop. 
> 
> Lastly but most importantly, please enjoy! I’d love to hear from anyone who wants to leave a comment at the end!

 

_"He sees the stars come out tonight, he sees the city's ripped back sides. He sees the winding ocean drive, and everything was made for you and me."_

**-The Passenger, Iggy Pop**

 

 

 

♀♀

Louis wakes abruptly to the sound of her phone alarm on Friday morning. The pain is immediate. Blearily she dismisses her alarm and struggles to read the date through the splinters of broken glass that distort the edge of the screen.

The twenty fifth; _wow,_ seems like she’ll actually be on time this month. She’s supposed to use that stupid app the GP recommended, she knows that, but she never does. The reminders that pop up in her notifications every day are a source of much irritation, but she won’t delete the app; that would be acknowledging her failings as a human.

The desire to stay in bed is always at its highest when she first wakes up, but it’s worse today. Her insides feel like they’re trying to become her outsides and they want to make their way out through her bellybutton. Not even the fact that it’s Friday can lift Louis’ spirits.

She rolls onto her front and curls up as tightly as she can in the foetal position. It’s only marginally better like this but she daren’t risk moving and making things worse. The alarm that she’d ignored nine minutes ago is soon blaring in her ear again, and with an aggravated sigh she drags herself out of bed and staggers to the shower.

♀♀

Her brothers are in a daze watching Nickelodeon in the front room, entranced by the bright lights and the loud noises, as she thunders past, hair dripping wet from the shower and her mood not even slightly improved.

“Mum, where’s the paracetamol?” Louis demands as she rifles through the Tupperware full of ibuprofen, Beechams cold and flu sachets and age-old antibiotics but _no_ bloody painkillers.

“I think your brother had the last of them for his ankle after footie the other day,” Jay remarks, seeming unbothered. Louis can feel her rage simmering under her skin, _very_ close to the surface.

“Fuck’s sake,” She mutters, slamming the cupboard door shut as dramatically as one can with cupboard doors with silent-close installed in them. She sees her mum smirking as she flounces off. “Shut up!”

With no painkillers available Louis stomps back upstairs to her room, grateful at least for the fact her short hair will dry itself by the time she makes it to school. She sits hunched over with her legs folded tightly, trying her best to _squeeze_ the pain away as she gets ready to leave, but it’s no good.

Louis is seriously considering going back downstairs and just necking a load of the twins’ Calpol but in the nick of time, her mum appears in the doorway with her hot water bottle.

“Here you go babe,” Jay says softly, passing it over along with a couple of quid. “Get yourself some Feminax on the way to school, it’s the only thing that really works, I know. Hopefully that takes the edge off.”

Louis’ blinks away the tears that are threatening and curses her stupid hormones. “Thank you,” She murmurs, leaning down to throw the coins into her school bag. The heat from the hot water bottle and the pressure of leaning over gives delightful symptomatic relief momentarily.  

Her mum kisses her forehead and goes off again. Louis carries on getting ready, sloshing oil through her hair and pushing it back into a slick, stubby little ponytail. A month ago her hair was too short for a ponytail, she notes as the elastic tie wraps around her hair a total of four times.

She can’t be bothered with makeup for school; even less so when she is due on, so she slaps a blob of Simple moisturiser on, conceals the spots on her jaw and then calls it a day. Once she’s dressed she gives her mum a one armed hug, ignores her brothers completely and heads out the door to a waiting Liam and Niall outside the gate.

“Hey Lou,” Liam greets her with a smile. She’s got her trainers on instead of her shoes and her shirt is untucked. “How’s tricks?”

Louis pouts exaggeratedly. “Not good. Tummy hurts. Tits hurt. Head hurts.”

Liam blushes but she doesn’t let her expression quiver. “Today’s the twenty… fifth? Oh, that’s actually on time for once. Are you all right? I’ve got a Twix in my bag if you want it? You got any tablets? Today’s not so bad, you’ve got media studies first but it’s double English after break so you can just sit at the back with us and zone out.”

Liam is like Louis’ personal secretary; she’d be lost without her.

“Thanks babe,” Louis smiles, touching her hand to Liam’s briefly as Liam wraps a supportive arm around her shoulder. “You mentioned a Twix?”

♀♀

By the time they’ve gone via the shops to get painkillers, they’re three or four minutes late. They sneak sheepishly into their tutor room and take their seats, dispersing across the classroom clumsily. Louis’ heart lurches automatically as she spots Harry.

Harry’s attention is focussed solely on Louis; her blazer hangs over the back of her seat and the crisp white of her shirt makes her skin look even more alabaster than usual. She’s twisting a tendril of wild brunette curls around her finger and smiling over at her discreetly.

It’s torture getting through tutor without being able to properly speak to Harry. Their form tutor Miss Allbright stands at the front and prattles on about all sorts of rubbish that Louis isn’t taking in, and from the looks of things no one else is either.

They go their separate ways after tutor, only managing a fleeting look across the rapidly emptying classroom. Louis heads off to media studies alone, Liam towards the sports hall and Harry and her wonderful head of curls retreat towards the art block for graphic design with Zayn in tow.

The painkillers finally start to kick in about midway through the lesson. There is a commotion outside as the other classes get from and to where they need to be, and then it all falls quiet again and the lesson continues.

Louis doodles a little LT+HS in the corner of her textbook as she listens to Miss Hall drone on. Now that they’re officially past the halfway mark, Louis can start counting down to seeing Harry. Somewhere across the other side of the school, Harry is sitting in her lesson, no doubt ignoring Zayn’s prompts for mischief and listening intently to her tutor, taking notes and highlighting pages in her textbook to read later.

Louis smiles absentmindedly to herself. How Louis ever managed to find a girl like Harry, she’ll never know. She just about loves the pants off of her, though. It’s not that their relationship is secret, more low-key. Their mums know and the girls know, and Louis’ oldest little brother was unfortunate enough to barge in on them kissing in bed once, but outside of their immediate circles they keep themselves to themselves.

Louis had endured ‘Louis the Lezzy’ and the more creative ‘Lousbian’ throughout much of the first half of secondary school; it’s died down now and nobody really seems to care anymore, but Harry takes what other people think and say about her a lot harder than Louis. It’s okay, they’ve only got less than a year left of sixth form anyway-

“ _Miss Tomlinson?”_ A familiar voice interrupts her train of thought and Louis’ eyes dart over to Miss Hall, mind completely blank. “Concentrate, please.”

Louis nods hurriedly and looks back down at her page, at the daisy in the corner of the page that she hadn’t even realised she’d been drawing.

♀♀

The last half of media studies drags but eventually the bell rings and they get a fifteen minute break before double English. Louis heads out of media studies with Ed and Perrie, two people just on the periphery of their friendship group, and catches up with the other four who conveniently all have first period in the same block. She sulks moodily as she joins the group and listens to the tail end of a conversation that had obviously been going on long before she arrived.

Double English is basically just an excuse for a gossip and a giggle; an hour and a half where the five of them sit together half-listening to Miss Duncan, messing about while appearing to be doing _just_ enough work to get by.

Zayn texts from across the room to suggest going straight to the library for lunch as it’s raining out. That suits Louis because the toilets in the library are officially the quietest, least frequented place in the whole school. Harry knows that too.

She gets there early so she has a quick wee while she waits, still nothing in the pan but it’s definitely imminent. She counts on her fingers how long it’s been since she took her last painkillers, and estimates that she’s probably okay to take more now.

She’s just downing them with a gulp of tap water, hoping she’s not inadvertently OD’ing, when Harry sneaks in the door, her large hair the first thing Louis sees before those gem-like eyes and broad smile. Harry’s smile nearly splits her face in half it’s so wide.

Harry’s bag slides off her shoulder to the floor and she rushes towards Louis, stepping in between her legs as Louis leans back against the sink. Louis pulls Harry in even closer and lifts her other hand into her hair, raking her fingers through the strands to find the soft skin of Harry’s neck. Louis rests her other hand gently in the small of Harry’s back as she kisses her, so attentive in the soft pressure that she applies and the even softer kitten licks into Louis’ mouth.

“Hey gorgeous,” Harry finally greets her, pulling away but staying close. “Missed you.”

“Hello my string bean,” Louis replies. Harry drops her chin onto Louis’ shoulder and she feels Harry’s shoulders sag as she rests all of her weight against her. “Missed you too.”

“At least my pet names for you are cute,” Harry mutters over Louis’ shoulder, rolling her eyes no doubt.

“Sorry love,” Louis is not sorry and she knows Harry likes the weird nicknames.

“You’re not sorry.”

“Harry, my tummy hurts!” She wails instead of carrying on the back-and-forth. “My lady parts are trying to break free. They’re punishing me for not putting a bastard foetus in there! D’you know what that is, that’s discrimination that is, against not only lesbians but also _anyone_ who doesn’t want children.”

“Lou,” Harry says with a smile. “You’re being dramatic.”

“I’m not! It hurts!” Louis says with a heavy pout.

Harry rolls her eyes but smiles sweetly. She switches their roles, shifting her weight back off Louis and pulling her in so Louis can slump against her. She soothes her hand over the small of Louis’ back and makes soft little rasping noises in her ear as she brushes her lips delicately over her skin.

“Want to come over tonight?” She asks softly. “Mum won’t mind.”

Louis bears a smile at the thought of a night in with Harry. She nods feebly, formulating a plot in her mind.

“D’you reckon, if you ask nicely and I give him petrol money your brother would take us to town to get takeaway Nando’s?”

Harry smiles. “Yeah, I’ll text him in a minute, should be fine.”

♀♀

Louis leaves the loo first, leaving Harry behind in the end cubicle having a wee. By the time Harry joins them again Louis has found the girls and they’re sitting around a table with chairs that they’ve dragged from all corners of the library.

Niall smirks filthily as she watches Harry come out of the same door Louis had just come from, but she doesn’t say anything. Her bag of Doritos rustles obnoxiously as she bursts them open and puts them in the middle for everyone to share.

Zayn is sketching and Liam has her sports therapy textbook open at a cross section of a kneecap, the layers of muscle, bone and gristly bits broken down into chunks. Harry slips into the seat next to Louis and shuffles closer to her, resting her arm around the back of her chair and pressing her fingertips into her side.

They’re not particularly quiet during their ‘studying’ and Dawn the librarian keeps looking over at them.

“Should be grateful we’re in ‘ere!” Niall mutters, too loudly. “Without us this place would be dead.”

“Shut up, you tit.” Zayn says with a bemused smirk, not even looking up from her sketchbook.

Louis shifts in her seat, trying to ignore the pangs of pain that feel like someone simultaneously squeezing and tugging on her uterus. For five minutes she’s more comfortable with her legs folded underneath her, then her foot starts to go dead so she switches back to sitting normally and then she can’t find that sweet spot again.

“All right, babe?” Harry says softly, bowing her head to give them the illusion of privacy. “Hurting?”

Louis nods with a grimace and a squirm. She watches as Harry’s eyes light up and then she swings her great big bag up onto the table and goes rifling through it. Eventually she produces a mini hot water bottle with a fluffy owl cover on it. And that’s not even the most obscure thing in Harry’s handbag.

“Thanks love, but-”

“Wait!” Harry orders with a smile. Louis watches as Harry gets up, wiggles her shoulders proudly and saunters casually over to the desk and lean in to talk to Dawn. Seconds later, Dawn is taking the hot water bottle into the office behind her desk.

Harry returns with the owl cover slipped back over the rubber. “There you go.”

Louis honestly feels like she could cry. She doesn’t kiss Harry but it takes all of her self-restraint to resist. “Thank you, Hazzy.”

“Yous two are disgusting,” Niall mumbles with a scowl as she shoves six Doritos in her mouth.

Louis holds up a dismissive hand. “You’re straight, you don’t get an opinion!”

♀♀

Louis makes it to the end of the day, surviving even though when she goes to the loo again she finds her special friend has decided to finally show their face. Or their… well, whatever.

The five of them walk out of school together, going their separate ways outside the gates; Liam and Zayn get picked up by Liam’s dad and Niall saunters confidently across the car park to where her driving instructor is waiting for her.

Afterwards, when it’s just Louis and Harry, she feels a bit of her irritation and anger slip away. Just a bit.

Their shoulders bump together as they walk off the school grounds, across the road and towards Harry’s house. As they approach the kerb Harry reaches out for her hand and laces their fingers together.

Harry chatters most of the way home, telling Louis in excruciatingly boring detail about biology yesterday, but Louis listens intently to every word; she really wouldn’t be without Harry’s waffling stories.

It’s almost eerily silent at Harry’s house, what with it just being three of them living there. Louis craves the peace sometimes, when at her house the younger twins are squabbling and the older two are fighting over the PlayStation or the last bag of cheese and onion Walkers in the cupboard.

“Hiya Annie-Pannie,” she greets the woman she affectionately refers to as her mother in law. Harry is the absolute double of her mum; they both have the same hair and heavy, pensive stare to their olive green eyes.

“Hello Louis love, how are you? How’re mum and the boys?”

Louis smiles and answers politely and vaguely; she would never reveal how she _really_ feels about her brothers, especially not to someone as lovely and wholesome as Anne.

“That’s good, say hi to mum for me, lovey. I haven’t seen her for a few weeks now!”

“I will,” Louis agrees with a sweet smile. Harry is over Anne’s shoulder making funny faces but Louis is expertly trained in remaining neutral when an annoying little person is trying to sabotage her, so she doesn’t react.

“Your brother will be home from work about six ish, Harry,” Anne says, before adding with a smirk, “In case you suddenly smell something awful.”

Harry cackles and Louis smirks politely.

“Yeah, he’s gonna give us a lift into town to get takeaway Nando’s,” Harry states. “He doesn’t know it yet, but he is.”

Anne rolls her eyes. “Well, good luck with that. I’m down here if you need anything, girls.”

Louis politely thanks her and Harry makes a far less polite remark, and then they scamper off upstairs.

Harry’s room is like the inside of a marshmallow; fairy lights trail around the headboard, she has a hundred decorative cushions and the duvet cover has little roses on it. There’s a garland of felt rose petals draped around the mirror and she has a notice board full of Polaroids above her chest of drawers. There are trinkets everywhere from their year and a half together so far; her  lanyard from when they went to Leeds festival last year, cinema ticket stubs, a postcard from when they went to Blackpool together and all the cards Louis’ sent her while they’ve been together: birthday, Valentine’s Day _and_ Christmas.

Louis dumps her bag in the corner and takes Liam’s Twix out of the side pocket. For all her fussing earlier, she hadn’t actually got around to eating the chocolate bar. Harry has already thrown herself on the bed, sprawled out on top of the covers, all arms and legs like a newborn giraffe. Louis joins her, dropping one knee onto the soft, springy mattress and lowering herself down.

She snaps the Twix finger in half, giving Harry the bigger half. Harry gives it to her back and takes the smaller half. Louis smiles, feeling emotionally unstable again, and pops the chocolate in her mouth. As she chews she drops her head onto Harry’s shoulder. The chocolate bar has gone warm and sticky in her bag all day and the caramel and milk chocolate meld together in her mouth making her teeth feel funny.

“Feeling poo again?” Harry asks as she swallows too. Louis nods against her collarbone. Harry offers her a massage but the idea of being touched like that makes Louis squirm, so they just cuddle instead.

“C’mon,” Harry prompts, squeezing Louis’ shoulders. “Up top.”

Louis wriggles up the bed, lifting her head off Harry’s shoulder. Harry turns her head towards Louis, tucks her hair out of the way and reaches out for Louis. She touches the cool tips of her fingers to Louis’ jawline and draws her in for a kiss.

She tastes initially of watermelon lip balm, and then orange juice and Twix as Louis parts her lips and lets Harry’s soft tongue past.

“Mmm,” Louis murmurs into the kiss. “Harry, your mum’s downstairs.”

Harry pulls away and rolls her eyes but she’s smiling. “Stop mentioning my mum when I’m trying to kiss you.”

Louis apologises by way of another kiss, smiling against Harry’s lips as she pulls her back in. Harry puts the TV on though they’re not really watching. They snog lazily for a very long time, not stopping to talk or laugh or even breathe. Escape to the Country plays on the telly to nobody, the world carrying on around them as they take the time to just be together.

Harry’s brother arrives home some time later and his deep booming voice fills the downstairs, vibrating through the walls and floor but then his bedroom door clunks shut and there’s peace again.

“Wait here,” Harry says, untangling herself from Louis and getting up. “I’ll go and ask him.”

“Don’t forget to say I’ll pay for petrol.”

Harry nods and ducks out of the room. Louis rolls off her side onto her back, looking over at the telly absently. She lifts her legs, letting them dangle in the air, seeing if that would be more comfortable. It’s like that that Harry finds her upon her return.

“He said fine,” Harry reports. “He said don’t worry about petrol money, though.”

“Wow,” Louis remarks. “That’s nice. Shall we order now? I’m starving.”

The sharp pang of Harry’s empty stomach is all the answer Louis needs.

♀♀

Harry’s brothers car smells like pine air freshener and spotlessly clean upholstery. He drives like a maniac and they’re there in record time.

They practically run up the street to Nando’s, as if they haven’t eaten in months. They loiter by the takeaway window, the smells absolute torture. Harry lifts her arms above her head to tie her gargantuan hairdo into a bun and when she does she creates a cleavage that Louis can’t help but notice.

She drags her eyes away reluctantly as Harry puts her arms back down by her sides and lightly kicks her shin.

“My eyes are up here, Tomlinson.” Harry says drily as Louis’ guilty eyes meet hers.

“Sorry love,” She mumbles, pushing her own hair back off her face. It’s got a kink in it three quarters of the way down from her ponytail, which won't straighten out until she washes it again. Louis feels like there is a joke in there somewhere, but she can’t find it right now.

Harry and her brother wind each other up on the drive back; he complains that his car now stinks of spices and grease, and Harry retorts that it’s an improvement on the smell of his arse. Louis sits in the back guarding the food and laughing at their back-and-forth-banter; she can’t imagine a time when she could be like that with one of her own brothers.

When they get back they go to the kitchen to get plates and cups. Anne looks up from where she was peering down at a magazine.

“Mmm, smells delicious, girls! I’m gonna put Holby on in the conservatory if you need me, okay? Harry, bring your plates and glasses down when you’re finished please, hun.”

“Yeah, will do,” Harry murmurs as she rests the bag of takeaway chicken on two stacked ceramic plates. She picks up the plates, two pint glasses and their bottle of Pepsi Max at the same time as flicking an errant curl out of her eyes, and Louis steps in before disaster can ensue.

“Lemme take ‘em, babe,” She grabs the bottle and glasses from Harry’s arm, holding onto them tightly and sharing a smile with Anne as they vacate the kitchen and head back to Harry’s bedroom.

♀♀

Harry dishes up, i.e.: puts greasy paper-wrapped packages on plates along with chips and the ketchup she’d shoved into her jacket pocket.

Harry had ordered something new - always risky - the fino pitta. _‘You’re my fino pitta,’_ Louis had joked when they were ordering. Now, she looks at the take out menu stuffed in with their order and skims the dishes for the pitta.

“Flame grilled peri-peri- no! _Two_ flame grilled peri-peri chicken thighs, halloumi, red onion _and_ garlic mayo?” She reads incredulously as Harry begins to unwrap the beast. “Flip me, I’m not kissing _you_ tonight!”

“I never asked you to!” Harry counters as she takes a bite, effectively silencing her.

Louis unravels her own rather more plain choice, a chicken burger, and dutifully removes the salad that she’s never brave enough to ask them to leave out. They both know each other well enough not to try and stir up any conversation more in depth than ‘pass me the Coke’ or ‘let me have three of your chips’.

The food is delicious, just what Louis needed, but it doesn't take her mind off things one hundred percent. She chews on the same mouthful of bun and chicken for a solid minute and a half as a cramping contraction that she assumes is probably worse than childbirth itself simmers in her tummy, gradually getting worse before apexing, making her feel dizzy and a bit sweaty while it reaches its crescendo and then finally begins to taper off.

Louis shovels in a handful of chips once the pain goes, chewing miserably. Out of the corner of her eye Louis is vaguely aware of Harry deconstructing and fiddling with the contents of her _fino pitta_.

“Hey. Louis.” Harry says, garnering Louis’ attention. “Look. It’s you.”

“Excuse me?” Louis asks, looking at her girlfriend holding up a rather soggy looking disc of halloumi with an expectant and proud grin on her face.

“Halloumi. Hal-Lou-mi. Halloumi.” Harry says, as if _duhh._

Louis scrutinises the joke and her girlfriend’s stupid expression, then breaks and laughs. “That was horrible, Haz.”

“Got you to smile though, didn't it?”

Louis softens. “I’m okay. I’m happy.”

“Does it still hurt?”

Louis nods morosely. “Not as bad. The tablets are still sorta hanging around in my system.”

Harry pops the bit of cheese into her mouth and then reaches for both their plates, leaning over the edge of her bed to discard them on the floor.

“C’mere,” She instructs as she licks cheese grease off her fingers. Sexy. She pats the white flowery duvet cover and Louis rolls over onto her side, curling up against Harry who leans back on the pillows and laces both of her arms around Louis’ shoulders.

“Love you munchkin.” Harry whispers, giving Louis’ shoulder a rub.

“Love you too, beanpole.”

Louis shuffles down the bed to get comfortable against Harry’s bony body, all the while dealing with the marching band with their spears that are cavorting in her uterus.

♀♀

“Huh? What?” Louis surges awake with an unflatteringly sharp intake of breath.

It takes a while to come to her senses, realise where she is, but when she blinks away the fog and sees Harry’s concerned face peering in at her.

“Hey babe,” Harry murmurs softly, reaching for a stray bit of hair that has landed in Louis’ eyes. “Didn’t wanna disturb you but it’s almost ten.”

“Did I fall asleep?” Louis asks, rather pointlessly.

Harry nods, her hair bobbing around her shoulders as she does. “You did. Very cute.”

Louis snorts as she pulls herself up; ‘very cute’ surely means ‘you grunted and groaned like a walrus with the flu’. “Sorry for flaking out on you. S’all that delicious food, plus, nice cuddles.”

“I do give quite good cuddles for a ‘bag of bones’, don’t I?”

“Shut up, I’ll kill the person that said that!”

“It was you.”

“Shut up, no it wasn’t!”

“It was!”

They bicker back and forth for no more than a few more moments before relapsing into another cuddle. As Harry kisses her, she feels a spasm of interest down below which triggers another cramp.

It’s raining again outside so Anne gives Louis a lift home; she sits in the back watching Harry with a perpetual smile as she bobs around, her hair moving as if independent from the rest of her body.

♀♀

A few hours later, Louis is lying on her front with her face in her pillow, her hands pressed tightly in between her legs and her belly with her knees tucked right up by her chin, growling angrily as she squeezes her muscles trying to get them to uncramp. She gives up trying to fall asleep eventually.

She must fall asleep at some point though because the next thing she knows she’s waking up, still on her belly but flat now, clutching between legs. Moodily she turns off her stupid alarm and stumbles her way to the shower.

The evidence washes away down the plughole and Louis makes angry faces at the innocent bathroom tiles as she envisions another four or five days of this. She towels off immediately and gets her bra and pants on, sticking a spare pad in her bra in case of emergencies.

How she is expected to get through a full seven hours at work is beyond Louis, but she dresses in her all black ensemble and thunders downstairs anyway.

Her mum and the twins are awake but the other two are still in bed. Louis is happy with that; two less idiots to deal with. She goes straight for the kitchen, her mind set on a big bowl of chocolately cereal and nothing can stop her.

Her mum appears in the doorway as she’s pouring the milk. She makes a stupid shocked face when she spots the size of Louis’ portion.

“Lou, you could at least save some for someone else, I’m not doing the big shop ‘til Wednesday!”

“So what, you just want me to starve to death, do you?”

“No, but I’m sure you don’t need a bowl that big!”

“Oh my _God_ , Johannah, I’ll buy more flipping Coco Pops if it bothers you that much!” Louis exclaims, cutting Jay completely off.

The twins stare at her, agog as she shoves the almost empty box of cereal back in the narrow cupboard and grabs her bowl. “And what’re you two starin’ at?”

Louis can’t enjoy her Coco Pops after that, even though she was desperately looking forward to them. Her walk to work is peppered with irritations too, and by the time she gets to the café where she works, she’s got a persistent niggle on her left side that makes her want to cry. She misses Harry too.

It’s almost a given that at least one of her friends will come by the café on Saturdays to see her. She always hopes, of course, that it will be Harry but this time it’s Niall and Liam. She’s pleased to see them though, all the same.

“All right?” She greets them. Liam smiles back sweetly but Niall looks most affronted.

“Do the proper bit, Tommo, c’mon!” She orders. Louis rolls her eyes but can’t help but smile. She takes a deep breath and sighs it out, trying not to let her smile grow.

“Good morning, welcome to Poppy’s, how can I help you today?”

Niall grins with delight and proceeds to order poached eggs on brown toast and a tea. Liam’s order is the same expect scrambled eggs. Louis smiles sarcastically as she rings it through and takes their money. She finds Liam and Niall a table in the corner and scribbles the table number on their order before sending it upstairs to the kitchen and setting about making their teas.

She prefers it when people order coffee because that’s easier, but oh well. She serves a few more counter customers, restocks the shelves with the freshly baked loaves that they sell, and hides out back for thirty seconds while she texts Harry.

By the time Niall and Liam leave, it’s pretty much lunchtime. Louis makes herself a cheese and ham sandwich, grabs a bag of prawn cocktail and jogs upstairs to the staff room. It’s a musty, windowless room full of coats damp from the rain, dusty old baking equipment and stacks of age old magazine. Louis grabs a three and a half year old copy of _OK!_ and sits down.

She wolfs her food down even faster than usual, her hormones making her ravenous. She washes down two more Feminax and throws the empty packet into the bin. No sooner has her lunch break begun, it’s over again.

There’s plenty to do in the afternoon because it’s raining out so everyone has been drawn in, like worms in the rain but the opposite way round. She returns to the counter immediately after lunch but her boss phones through from upstairs and asks if she can switch to running; which basically means jogging up and down the stairs with plates of hot food serving the sitting customers.

By five o’clock the burning ache in her thighs and lower back is almost driving her to tears. By the time she’s lugged herself home and collapsed on the sofa she actually is crying. She buries her face in a cushion when two of her brothers wander in, but they leave her well alone anyway. Once she’s worked up the strength she hauls herself up, takes the remaining four Jaffa cakes out of the treats basket and hides away in her room for the rest of the evening, until tea time.

It’s still raining at tea time and showing no signs of letting up; bloody November weather. She sits at the tea table with her hot water bottle concealed under Harry’s hoodie, trying to enjoy the toad-in-the-hole her mum has made. With lashings of gravy and extra creamy mash, it’s not going to do any favours for her ever-expanding stomach, but she can’t find it in herself to care much.

♀♀

Sunday is a lovely excuse to not get out of bed until half past two in the afternoon. When she wakes she rolls onto her side and then to sitting, double checking she hasn’t left behind any leaks. Satisfied that she hasn’t, she’s also glad to note that the initial wave of pain and nausea that she’d had the last two mornings has now subsided a bit.

She grabs her phone and disappears to the loo, cleaning up and then sitting on the closed lid checking social media and replying to her legions of messages. Well, one message. A nice message though, that’s worth the value of a thousand messages from anyone else.

♥ **H:** _Good morning beautiful, hope you have a happier day today. Keep your hot water bottle topped up. Im going to Manchester with mum and auntie carol today so will call you later on. Love you squillions xo_

Harry’s message puts a smile back on Louis’ face, at least temporarily. Sunday roast helps too.

Afterwards she sits on the floor in front of her mum on the sofa and she threads French braids into either side of her short brown hair. Sitting down on the hard surface for so long makes Louis’ bum go numb, and when she finally extrapolates herself she feels the rushing tingle of sensation come back and the rush of something else too.

She dashes off to the bathroom, knowing her comatose brothers will be too engrossed in the telly to question her hasty retreat.

Instead of going back downstairs she climbs back into bed, awaiting Harry’s call which comes about half an hour later.  

“Hey love,” She greets her. “You home now?”

“Yeah, just got back. We stopped for tea at a Harvester just before the motorway.”

“Nice one,” Louis smiles. “I miss you.”

“Miss you too, Lou-Lou,” Harry sing-songs. “What have you done today?”

Louis sighs. “Nothing. Slept in. Had a roast. Mum did my hair for me. Plaits.”

“Ah, so you’ll be curly tomorrow, just like me.”

“Just like you,” Louis echoes, smiling.

They talk for ages, never running out of anything to say. Harry tells her all about her infinitely more exciting day out in Manchester, going around the Trafford Centre and getting _afternoon tea_ , thank you very much. They laugh and share jokes that probably only make sense to them. Harry tells Louis again how much she misses her, and Louis still agrees.

“God, I wish you were here, Lou-Lou,” Harry murmurs softly. “Miss you, miss you, miss you.”

“Miss you too, Hazzy,” Louis replies, shuffling down her bed a bit and extending a hand over her tummy. It’s flat when she lies down like this; it’s the only time she’s ever happy with it.

“Want to see you, want to smell you,” Harry continues, and Louis’ heart flips in her chest as she realises. “Wanna kiss you and- an’ touch you.”

Louis’ breath catches in her throat and she hears Harry make a similar noise. “Y-yeah?” She stammers. “Where?”

Harry hesitates before she answers too; she swallows and it’s audible. “Somewhere warm, and… wet. Somewhere only I get to touch.”

“Shit, babe,” Louis murmurs, realising she’s gripping her t-shirt. She immediately wants Harry; there’s no way she can make herself immune to Harry. She doesn’t have the luxury of isolation in which to flirt with her girlfriend, though, so she tells Harry to hang on, double checks her bedroom door is closed, dives under the covers and converts to the softest, secretive whispers she can muster in her state.

“So soft,” Harry murmurs, her tone soft and high, reserved especially for her. “Can I touch, Lou-Lou? Wanna feel.”

Louis makes a noise high in her throat that means yes, yes Harry can touch. God, she wishes this was real and that this was any week but this week.

“Open up,” Harry instructs. Louis pictures it in her head as Harry talks. “Let those legs fall open, that’s it. Nice, baby. Nice knickers, you’re already so wet for me, Lou-Lou, soaking through them, you are. Let’s get them off you, that’s it. Beautiful girl, my lovely Lou.”

“Love you,” Louis murmurs freely.

“Love you too,” Harry says without missing a beat. “Mmm, Lou you feel so good, babe. Skins’ so soft and so wet, does it feel good?”

Louis shudders as she agrees, yes it feels good. She can feel the ghost of Harry’s fingertips on her, pressing intimately against her folds and applying pressure to her throbbing protrusion.

“You look so good like this, Lou, you feel so good. Love how warm and wet you are, you’re so hot. I’m gonna dip my finger inside, okay? Just one, just slowly. So smooth inside, God babe. You feel amazing.”

“Feels so good, Haz,” Louis manages to mumble, closing her eyes and seeing blinking stars in the darkness from the dizzying sensations in her lower body.

“Two fingers now, okay?” Harry murmurs; Louis can practically feel it. “Oh my God, it’s so nice, Lou, you feel amazing. I wanna, ah I wanna make you feel so good. So good.”

Harry is beginning to stammer now, starting to lose her concentration as she so obviously dips her fingers into herself, whimpering little cut off noises as she loses herself completely. The conflict between her hormones and her emotions send Louis into a spin; every inch of her body going from achingly desperate to shudderingly sensitive and back again as Harry whispers her way to orgasm. Louis squeezes her own thighs together, feeling a gush inside as she listens to her girlfriend coming down the phone line. It’s all she can do at this moment, squeezing against the pulsing tingle between her legs.

Louis remembers their first kiss, and the other firsts that had followed that. Louis had watched Harry bring herself to orgasm for the very first time. She’d writhed around on the bed, desperate to stop but actually not wanting to stop at all. She’d exclaimed to Louis that she couldn’t do it, that she had to stop it was too much, but then she’d sped up upon the apex unexpectedly and come hard with a shout, her other hand shooting out to find Louis. Louis had grabbed Harry’s hand, clutched it tightly and rubbed circles into her knuckles until she came down from her natural high.

After that, it was like a new facet of Harry had been unleashed, and they’d not looked back.

Louis tiptoes out of her room some time later, still feeling dazed. A text from Harry pings through as she lays there; a picture that makes Louis twitch quite violently. She commits the image to memory, double security locks her phone, shoves it under her pillow and runs to the shower. With the steady stream of hot water to aide her she lets out her own frustrations and then goes downstairs to find more food.

♀♀

Louis sleeps through hitting snooze on her alarm on Monday morning. It’s twenty to eight when her mum comes bursting in the door shouting her name.

“Lou, c’mon love, it’s almost eight o’clock! You _need_ to get up!”

Louis jolts awake but can’t work out where she is for a moment. Her mums words don’t register as she sits there bewildered, reaching a hand up to her fluffy, wonky plaits.

“Urgh, stop!” she groans as Jay pulls the duvet back, exposing Louis’ limbs to the cool air.

“Up!” Jay repeats before stalking off again in the direction of a boy’s shouts coming from down the hall.

Louis drags herself out of bed and stumbles towards the bathroom on stiff achy limbs. She grabs a towel - Power Rangers - from the airing cupboard and showers again as quickly as she can.

Her hair is massive when she lets it down from the plaits but with some serum and a crafty side sweeping parting, it actually ends up looking half presentable. A lick of mascara and some lip balm later, with a naff plastic wrapped Tesco pain au chocolat in her pocket for breakfast, Louis tumbles out of the front door to join Liam and Niall loitering outside the gate.

♀♀

Louis sees Harry in tutor. They share a knowing smile and a giggle across the room, flashing back to last night; a secret exchange that no one could decipher from the outside. Louis bumbles her way through double media studies first, sticking close to Perrie and Ed as they brainstorm advertising and how companies target certain things towards certain demographics.

With a short break in between, after media studies is double business with Liam and Niall. That passes by much nicer, and then after that the rest of the day is pretty much theirs for the taking; lunchtime and then double study period.

The five of them meet in the cafeteria queue, Harry appearing last, sneakily patting Louis on the bum before squeezing in between Zayn and Niall with a broad grin.

“Sorry I’m late girls, I got caught up in the dark room!” She explains. She’s just had double photography; her favourite subject.

“Could you not find your way out?” Zayn deadpans.

“Did you get your hair tangled in the wire they hang the pictures from?” Niall chirps, wiggling her eyebrows devilishly.

“Shut up you two,” Louis says weakly as Harry’s cheeks go pink, though they’re all laughing.

They move along as the queue shifts, and shovel a healthy diet of sausage roll and chips onto their plates. They take over a six seater table in the far corner, Liam’s colossal sports bag taking up seat number six.

They eat quickly and then reconvene to the library where they again plan to spend the rest of the rainy afternoon. It’s quiet when they first arrive but once the bell goes it slowly fills up. They chatter as quietly as they can, trying to keep a lid on their giggling. At least Zayn has the decency to pull out her sketch pad and at least _look_ busy.

“Oh look, Liam, there’s your best mate!” Niall whispers loudly, elbowing Liam and pointing out Sheree from year eight who lives next door to Liam. Liam used to walk her to and from school when she was in year seven and Niall never fails to bring it up whenever possible.

“Oh shut up,” Liam mumbles, blushing as she dutifully waves to Sheree across the room. Luckily the thirteen year old waves back and then scampers out of the library with her classmates, saving Liam from any further embarrassment.

Niall laughs as she pulls out her geography textbook, making a big deal of it like it’s the heaviest implement known to man.

Zayn joins in then. “How much _do_ babysitters make these days, Payno?”

“I _said_ shut up!” Liam squeaks with more force this time, causing Dawn the Librarian to look over at them with a frown.

“Oooh, she’s giving you the evil eye!” Niall remarks, snorting as Liam sinks further down in her seat and Niall flutters the pages of her text book showily.

During this entire exchange, Harry has been eyeing Louis closely, a twinkle in her olive green eyes and a smile on the corner of her lips that she isn’t trying very hard to conceal. Louis blushes under Harry’s gaze; the only person that can reduce her to a squirming, flustered mess.

“Jesus _Christ_ you two!” Zayn exclaims suddenly, slamming her hands down on her page. “Get a flipping room will you?”

It’s Harry’s turn to be bashfully flustered then, as Louis laughs and sticks her middle finger up at Zayn. “We will! That’s later on, though.”

“Lou!” Harry squeals, reaching across the table to smack her leg, but Louis just grabs her hand and pulls her up and into the spare seat next to her.

Louis shuffles closer to Harry, fitting into her side perfectly. She alternates between playing games on her phone and looking at her notes from media studies that morning. She drapes her arm around Harry, loosely playing with an errant tendril.

When the bell for the end of the day goes and everyone clears out, the two of them make their excuses to stay behind. The other girls rib them for it and make remarks, rolling their eyes and wiggling their eyebrows, but they pay them no mind and once they’ve gone they’re the only two people left, aside from Dawn.

“Missed you,” Harry says. “Even though you’ve been sat right next to me for the past two hours I still missed you.”

“I’m here, babe,” Louis whispers, trying to be a comfort. She looks over her shoulder; all four corners of the library are deserted and Dawn is just shuffling into the back office with a trolley of recently returned library books.

Louis doesn’t waste a second in leaning in to press a reassuring kiss to Harry’s lips. She presses her lips against Harry’s firmly, reaching one hand up into her curls and giving them a slight, gentle tug.

“I love you,” She says earnestly, breaking away and resting her forehead against Harry’s. She can smell her watermelon lip balm as well as taste it now. “You’re my favourite.”

Harry smiles, snorting softly from her nose. “You’re my favourite, too.”

“C’mon, let’s walk home before it starts raining again.”

♀♀

On Tuesday afternoon, Louis sits in business studies with Liam and Niall trying to figure a way to get to the cinema later without having to catch the bus. It’s cheap Tuesday at the cinema so she and Harry are going to see a comedy that came out at the weekend, and she doesn’t fancy getting her Vans all wet in a puddle.

“You could drive me!” Louis exclaims suddenly, like she’s just come up with the smartest idea on earth.

Niall stares back at her. “Lou, I’m still only doing my lessons.”

“Yeah, but you can drive reasonably well, right?”

“Well, yeah,” Niall agrees smugly. “But still…”

“Well then what’s the problem?”

“The problem is it’s the instructors’ car, not mine.” Niall points out.

Louis stares back at her friend, holding Niall in her icy cold stare before rolling her eyes heavenwards. “Why do you have to do that, Ni?”

“What, be realistic?” Niall laughs.

“Yeah, we’ve got Li for that!” Louis pouts.

Liam shouts out in protest, Niall and Louis cackle, they’re told to shush by Mr Maguire and that’s that.

♀♀

In the end they do get the bus. Harry is dressed for summer even though it’s November, in a powder blue flowery dress, leggings and a cardi. With Louis in her own all black ensemble of jeans and a bomber jacket they look like night and day, as Harry so happily points out with a chuckle.

They pay for their tickets, getting six pound off the cost of the tickets with their discount code. They queue for popcorn and Haribo which costs a small fortune but with the money saved on tickets they’re basically getting them for free anyway.  That’s Louis’ take on it, anyway.

Louis follows Harry down an empty row of seats. Harry sits down first, Louis tucking into her side. They’re sat right by the wall, away from the other people currently residing in the darkened room. Louis hopes nobody will join their row as the cinema fills up.

They kiss for a little while, while they can. When a man and a woman come and take their seats two rows in front of them they pull apart, but revert back once the couple are sitting down and engrossed in their own conversation.

“I love you,” Harry murmurs against her lips, and honestly, Louis will never tire of hearing that. She smiles, murmurs the same sentiments back and presses a series of quick little kisses to Harry’s buttery soft lips before pulling away. They re-adjust themselves, pulling up the arm rest that separates them. Harry crowds into the corner and Louis lies against her, crossing her legs.

The first set of spotlights go down at that moment and the adverts begin; firstly one for the local shopping centre and then one about turning your mobile phones off. There is still a smattering of whitish blue light here and there in the audience so the announcement is obviously having no effect.

After that the film previews start.

“Popcorn me,” Louis whispers hoarsely as someone on the big screen crashes a green Lamborghini off a cliff.

“Sit up properly,” Harry orders, but Louis just pulls a face.

“No, I’ve just got comfy. C’mon, feed me. I know you won’t let me die, I trust you.”

Reluctantly, Harry reaches into the tub of popcorn and places three pieces in the palm of her hand. She drops them carefully into Louis’ waiting open mouth.

“C’mon, I can take more than that!” Louis mutters as she chews. Harry rolls her eyes and takes another handful, dropping about eight pieces in this time.

Once the main lights go down and the film starts, Louis is happy to open up for four or five pieces sporadically, Harry’s attention mainly stolen by the big screen now.  

Louis shifts midway through the film as the angle she’s at has made her legs go numb. She grimaces her way through pins and needles, sitting upright in her own seat for the first time since arrival. Harry barely registers her plight; staring up at the screen intently with half a smile on her face the entire time. Louis watches her out of the corner of her eye, smiling fondly at the sight.

When Harry catches her staring she blushes profusely. “Stop it!” She hisses.

Louis’ pins and needles pass – _eventually_ – and she curls back up into Harry’s side, her coconutty hair making for a nice albeit tickly pillow.

♀♀

By the time the film ends the rain has subsided so they take a slow walk across the retail park towards the bus stop. It’s gone nine so the shops are all closed, just the restaurants and McDonald’s showing any signs of life. They get vanilla milkshakes from McDonald’s and take them on the bus home.

Louis is just walking up her road when Harry texts to say she’s home safe. She smiles down at her screen, replying once she’s safely inside.

“Hi love, how was the film?” Her mum greets her as she wanders into the living room. Jay is curled up in the corner of the sofa with a huge mug of tea resting on her knee, the telly turned down low for Louis’ arrival.

“Was good yeah,” Louis muses. She can’t really remember it now. “Was funny.”

“That’s good,” Jay smiles as Louis sits down on the opposite sofa. “And how’s Harry?”

Louis smiles fondly, feeling a touch of embarrassment as her mum gives her a knowing smile. “She’s fine,” Louis mumbles.

“Good. You’ll have to bring her over soon, Lou, it’s been ages since you did.” Jay says. “Anne’s always so good putting you up.”

“I know,” Louis agrees, thinking forwards. “Finishing at lunchtime tomorrow aren’t we? Might come back here then, if that’s okay?”

“Yeah, ‘course,” Jay agrees. “Will she stay for tea?”

“I should imagine so,” Louis says. “I’ll text her now. What’re you making?”

“I’ve done mince, so lasagne or spag bol? Up to you.”

“Spag bol,” Louis replies, not even looking up from the screen.

_‘Wanna come back to mine after school tomoz? Mums misses u and is making spag bol for tea xxx’_

♥ **H:** _Mmm yes please xo_

“She said ‘mmm yes please’,” Louis reports back. “Can we have garlic bread too, please?”

Jay laughs. “Are you kidding me, it’s all the twins eat! You think they’d let me get away with not serving garlic bread?”

Louis laughs softly and looks back down at her phone as her mum notches the volume on the telly back up. she and Harry text back and forth for a while until Harry goes quiet, returning almost forty five minutes later explaining that she’d been in the shower. Louis knows what an ordeal washing and drying Harry’s hair is.

In the meantime, Niall has texted too reminding her not to forget her USB drive with their geography presentation on.

♥ **H:** _Half of that popcorn ended up down my bra BTW xo_

Louis replies with the crying emoji and, _‘Jealous xx’_

“I’m gonna go to bed, mum,” Louis hauls herself up off the sofa and pads across the carpet to drop a kiss into her mum’s hair. “See you in the morning.”

“Night babe, love you lots.”

“Love you too, mum.”

♀♀

Louis doesn’t have the luxury of late night showers because of the risk of waking one of her brothers, so she finds herself dashing about the next morning doing it then. She doesn’t get her hair wet, there’s simply no time for that, but her mum has restocked Louis’ favourite marshmallow scented shower gel, so that’s nice.

Sweet smelling and happily no longer bleeding, Louis tumbles out the front door twenty minutes later with a banana in hand for her breakfast.

“Ey up, Lou’s got a mouthful!” Niall jokes as she joins her and Liam.

“Shut up, I’m a lesbian, you’re not allowed to say those things to me,” Louis says as she shoves the last of the unfortunately phallic fruit into her mouth. “Bloody straight people.”

“Not even Channing Tatum’s?” Niall continues. It’s about the millionth time she’s posed that question now, overall.

“Nope, not even Channing Tatum’s.” Louis replies with her mouth full.

“Ryan Gosling’s?”

Louis swallows the last of the banana. “No, but I’d suck your dick, Niall, how about that?” She wiggles her eyebrows as Liam chuckles softly to herself.

The three of them turn onto the main road and up ahead in the distance loitering outside the corner shop are the two small figures of Louis’ girlfriend and other best friend.

They don’t usually meet Zayn and Harry on the way into school because Zayn usually gets a lift with her mum who has to do a cross country tour of the town dropping various children off here there and everywhere, and Harry is perpetually early for school because she’s a geek.

A loveable one, though.

“Hi babe,” Louis says to Harry.

“Hello my sweetheart!” Zayn replies, barging past Harry with a broad grin to get to Louis. Louis rolls her eyes and puts her arm around Zayn’s shoulder, throwing an apologetic look at Harry.

The five of them walk the rest of the way together, laughing and joking about all sorts of inane crap. Liam moans about the weight of her sports bag and Niall witters on incessantly about their geography presentation.

“If I wanna be a travel rep I think a geography A-Level would stand me in pretty good stead, don’t you?” Niall huffs when Louis politely asks her to chill a bit.

Niall is no better once they’re in the lesson. They’ve got to give the presentations during the last week of the term, so they’ve got about three weeks to get things down. The two of them plus three others from the class have done quite well so far, plenty of brainstorming sessions and ideas on fonts and colour schemes, but nothing of any substance.

Louis doodles biro hurricanes in the corner of her page as she pretends to be coming up with ideas for their presentation. Their teacher Mrs Shaw is helicoptering around the room, watching over the four individual groups. When she wanders over in their direction Louis puts her art work aside for a moment and writes something aimlessly down on her page, looks up to pretend to be listening to what Charlotte is saying, and then looks down again when Mrs Shaw wanders off.

Harry and Liam join them at break time, but by the time they find Zayn near the Art & Design block they’ve only got five or six minutes to chew down their sugary snacks and chatter about their mornings before the bell is going again.

They all disperse, Zayn being the lucky one that gets to go off with Harry to graphic design. With a lingering hand hold and silent _I love you’s_ , Louis ambles her way to media studies, finding Ed along the way.

“Hiya little one, all right?” He asks, because he knows the nickname winds her up.

“Hello ginge,” She says with a smirk. Thing is though, being called ginge or gingernut doesn’t bother Ed like making fun of her size does for Louis.

Mrs Hall puts a documentary on for them to watch and advises them to make as many notes as they can throughout, and they’ll discuss them in the second half of the lesson. The bell for the end of the first lesson goes and the film is still going; the hurrah outside the door dies down eventually and Louis’ attention goes back to the screen.

Louis is reassured to find that most of what she’d jotted down during the film comes up in the discussions afterwards, so she’s obviously on the right track. They’ve got the rest of this term, all three weeks of it, to coast along and then after Christmas comes all the mock exams and hard core revision sessions.

But for now, Louis is happy to waste hours of her school day watching telly and writing down whatever seems relevant. It’s a plan that’s working well for her so far.

♀♀

On Wednesday’s they have the option of staying for their lunch and then going home, but Louis’ never understood that. The second the lunchtime bell rings she’s itching to get out of the gates on Wednesday’s.

She runs into Niall first, coming out of her communications classroom.

“Hey girl,” Niall smiles. “I’ve gotta driving lesson now, so I gotta run, okay?”

“Yeah, all right. You heard from anyone else?”

“Li’s staying on to help coach the year seven’s footie club at half past, so she’s there. Dunno about the other two. I’m shocked you don’t have Harry’s whole schedule memorised, to be honest.” Niall smirks, reaching up to tweak Louis’ elbow to show her jest.

Louis pulls a face at the idea of coaching twelve year olds on a cold, rainy day such as this one. Wrinkling her nose, she shakes her head and decides to pointedly ignore Niall’s Harry remark.

“Good luck in your driving lesson, Nialler!” She says brightly. “Don’t go up any kerbs. Look out for no entry signs! Don’t hit any grannies!”

“Very funny!” Niall calls over her shoulder as she heads out. “See ya, Tommo!”

Louis stands there alone grinning like a loon as Niall retreats. Perrie and a few of her mates smile as they pass by, and Louis absently wonders where Ed disappeared off to. While she’s wondering, she feels her phone vibrating in the left cup of her bra.

Reaching in quite unabashedly to retrieve it, she sees a message from Harry.

♥ **H:** _Hey gorgeous meet me by tutor, left my coat behind this morning xo_

Louis rolls her eyes, fires back a quick reply and walks in the direction of their tutor room, right over the other side of the school.

By the time she gets there Harry is already standing outside their tutor room hugging her coat; her hair bobbing around freely as she looks up and down the corridor for Louis.

She’s looking away as Louis turns the corner. She licks her lips and wolf whistles as she approaches. Harry turns right around, bless her, smiling as she spots Louis.

“Hiya,” She smiles, leaning in for a quick peck while the corridor is otherwise deserted. “Ready?”

“Yep,” Louis nods, zipping up her jacket. “Get your coat on, string bean, it’s freezing out there.”

♀♀

“Hello?” Louis bellows to the empty house, receiving no response.

She smiles brightly as she turns back to Harry, who’s kicking her shoes off by the door and dropping her bag.

“Free house,” She murmurs as she pulls Harry in for a kiss. There are a million damp droplets in her frizzy hair, and the tip of her nose is pink and cold, but she’s still perfect. “C’mon, let’s get into bed, I’m flippin’ freezing.”

Louis leads the way, Harry thundering up the stairs behind her.

Everything’s better when she’s in bed with Harry. With the drizzle in their hair dried off they snuggle up as close as is humanly possible. Harry’s hand lands perfectly on the curve of Louis’ bum, massaging the ample flesh through her trousers.

She feels Harry moan ever so softly against her shoulder, a noise almost as soft as a regular out breath.

“You have a bum fetish,” Louis remarks, and Harry leans up to face her.

“Yeah, an’ you've got a nice arse. Perfect match.” Harry agrees, shrugging shamelessly with a smile. She reaches down between them to undo Louis’ school trousers. She runs her fingertips over Louis’ hip, making her squirm with the light, tickling touch. Harry grins, knowing exactly what she’s doing, and then dips her hand under the loosened material.

Louis thanks her lucky stars she is back to wearing her nice underwear now; her pink spotty Brazilian ones with the lace trim. Harry touches her through the thin layer of fabric and then fiddles with the lace trim, pulling on it to reveal bare skin.

“If you rip them you owe me a new pair,” Louis murmurs as Harry tugs on her knickers once more, slapping her palm against her cheek playfully.

“I’ll risk it,” Harry murmurs with a devilish smile.

Harry smacks her once again then cups the meat of Louis’ bum. She nudges Louis’ face with her nose and Louis finds her lips, chasing the sweet taste.

She reaches up to Harry’s chest, she’s already got the top two buttons of her shirt undone. Louis undoes a third and brushes her fingers over the swell of Harry’s cleavage, her breasts large as they slump forward with the position they’re lying in.

Louis can feel herself starting to get wet as she feels the lacy cups of Harry’s bra. She can feel Harry’s nipples through the textured material, the involuntary rock of Harry’s hips against her own a good indication that she’s enjoying herself too.

“Lou,” She breathes heavily, taking her free hand and placing it over Louis’, encouraging her to be a bit firmer with her touch.

Harry then shifts the hand resting on Louis’ bum; she smoothes her knickers back over the swell and trails her fingernails back over the curves of Louis’ side and down between the V of her hips to where she is starting to soak through her knickers.

“Mmm, so wet, Lou,” Harry murmurs, sounding surprised though Louis can’t imagine why she would be. But then Harry smiles and she’s almost smug with it. Louis knows really that any innocence or naivety displayed by Harry when they’re making love to each other is purely for theatrics; Harry knows what she’s doing and how to do it exactly right. She knows what she does to Louis and what Louis knows what she does to her.

“S’you,” Louis manages to murmur back, sounding far less natural than her girlfriend. “You do this to me.”

“I reckon I could come just from watching you come.” Harry breathes.

“Yeah?” Louis asks, brain scrambled from Harry’s touch.

“Yep,” Harry pronounces, finally touching two fingers to Louis through her knickers. She runs them up and down the soft edges of her folds, biting down on her bottom lip as she smiles. Louis reflexively pushes her bum into the mattress, a rush of chills coursing through her body as Harry touches her.

Harry’s fingers speed up, pressing a bit more firmly, still outside of Louis’ knickers. Louis can’t remember ever feeling this wet before just with a bit of on-top touching. Harry presses between her folds, burrowing the pad of her middle finger at an angle against Louis’ clit so the pressure isn’t too intense too soon.

The build is slower like this but they don’t need to rush, they’re home alone. Louis grinds down into the mattress as Harry continues, pressing kisses to her lips and not letting her up for air. She raises one leg, digging her heel into the mattress as Harry lays alongside her. She tries to reach down and reciprocate at least _something_ for Harry, but she makes an _‘nuh-uh’_ sound against Louis’ lips and Louis has no choice but to let her hands rest by her sides.

She’s soon reaching up into her own hair, carding her fingers through it roughly and touching her other hand to a benign sliver of Harry’s shoulder, desperate for any sort of purchase. She clings to Harry’s arm, digging her fingertips in as she feels herself getting closer.

It’s building up now, the feeling snowballing once the initial urge hits her. She always gets the feeling, right before the point of no return, where she wants to clamp her thighs together, squeeze down around Harry’s hand and stop her because it’s just too much; it’s dizzying, blinding, almost terrifying because _nothing_ is supposed to feel this good, surely?

Louis swears her heart stops beating for a turn when she comes; her eyes close automatically and white stars fizz and pop behind her eyelids as the feeling crashes through her like waves, building, breaking and then washing tantalisingly slowly over the sand and soaking into the surface and away.

Her heart, which has not stopped after all, is hammering hard in her chest and the roar of her blood charging around her body is all Louis can hear as Harry’s touch disappears. Her lips are back on Louis’ a second later though. Louis kisses her back as best she can coming down from her orgasm, and she doesn't even realise until Harry is stuttering and stammering into her mouth that Harry actually _has_ brought herself to the edge and jumped too, all while Louis was still reeling herself.

“See? I told you so.” Harry murmurs breathlessly, eyes closed and cheeks flushed. Her hair sits in several directions, slightly slick around her hairline from sweat. “ _Almost_ didn't even need to touch myself, came in two seconds.”

“You’re beautiful,” Louis tells her earnestly, reaching up to move over a lock of hair and kiss Harry high on her right cheekbone.

“You’re more beautiful,” Harry answers, rolling onto her back and staring up at the ceiling. “On the one hand I don’t understand why everyone doesn’t wanna do this, but then I get jealous at the thought and I’m happy that most of the girls we know don’t like pussy. Less people to share you with.”

“You do chat some shit when you’re post-orgasm, don’t you love?” Louis snorts. “You don’t have to share me with anyone, Haz.”

“Good,” Harry says, her turn to be earnest now. “I love you.”

“I love you too, frizz ball.” Louis says, reaching for the nearest curl and tugging gently on it. Harry tries to swat her away lazily but Louis avoids it as she pulls herself to sitting.

She loves the tingle in her thighs as she goes to get up, the slight rush to her head as she moves to standing after being horizontal for so long. She does her trouser button back up and makes for the door. Harry follows behind, swinging into the bathroom while Louis dashes downstairs to get drinks and bags of crisps.

Despite the chill on this, the last day of November, Louis cracks open a window to get the stale air moving and they climb back into bed to watch yesterday’s Hollyoaks on E4+1 until the sound of siblings arriving home disturbs their peace.

♀♀

As expected, Jay fawns all over Harry when they venture downstairs later on. Louis sits at the tea table rolling her eyes as Harry very politely accepts a glass of blackcurrant squash and tells Jay all about her photography and what her plans for after sixth form are.

The twins stay out of the way, arguing over the telly in the front room until tea is ready. The six of them plus Harry gather around the large table, the spare chair that normally has bags and coats strewn over occupied making a full house.

As predicted, the twins devour most of the garlic bread, even though Louis can see the outer packaging for three whole baguettes still out on the kitchen side.

“Gannets,” She remarks, slapping their hands away as they go to help themselves to seconds. “Let someone else have a go, God.”

One of the older ones pokes his tongue out at Louis as she takes four pieces and passes two to Harry. “If I was closer I’d kick you under the table.”

“Now now, boys! Lou, stop it.”

“She started it!”

“Enough!”

Louis eats quickly and Harry seems to take heed and do the same. The boys stay sat at the table after demanding pudding, but Louis and Harry are excused, much to the boys’ chagrin.

“That’s not fair, why does _she_ get to go upstairs when we have to stay here?”

“Why’s _she_ so special?”

“Why aren’t _we_ allowed mates over for tea, mum?”

Louis rolls her eyes and peers over her shoulder apologetically at a smiling Harry as she grabs two Asda brand Mars bars from the cupboard on her way past.

“Life isn’t fair, boys, you’ll learn that one day!” Louis shouts back as they head back upstairs. Once they’re back in the safe confines of Louis’ room and the door is closed, Louis feels a lot calmer.

“Garlic breath,” Harry comments as they crawl back into bed and Louis leans in. “Oh c’mon, do I care? Ask me if I care?”

Harry remains tight lipped.

“Ask me if I care about your pongy garlic breath?” Louis repeats.

Harry looks steadfast but caves in the end. “Do you care about my pongy garlic breath?”

“No I do not,” Louis says decisively. “Now kiss me. Please.”

♀♀

Thursday is a good day because they have double English before lunch, the only lesson where it’s not only the five of them together but also the only lesson Louis has with Harry. It’s December first which means the countdown to the most important December event - Louis’ birthday - is on, and she doesn’t let them forget it.

So Thursday’s are good, sure, but they don’t get to go home early, and there’s no study sessions to mess about in, so for all of Thursday’s good qualities, Friday just pips it to the post in the race for Best Day Ever.

Double media studies first thing turns into a bit of a waste of time because they’re just in groups continuing their brainstorm. Ed spends most of the session making up ridiculous ideas for TV shows and making everyone laugh until their eyes are watering.

It’s a rare dry day so they wander outside after they’ve finished lunch. Mediterranean pasta with extra cheese sits heavily in Louis’ tummy as a confusing niggle in her left side threatens to ruin her good mood.

“All right, love?” Harry seems to magically appear the second Louis needs her, and it makes her heart swell a bit. “Tummy hurting?”

“How do you do that?” Louis asks through her giddy smile. “How do you know what’s wrong before I even say it?”

“Ahh!” Harry exclaims, tapping the side of her little button nose. “That would be telling, wouldn’t it?”

“Dunno why it’s hurting,” Louis shrugs. “I finished on Wednesday so I dunno what it is. Maybe too much pasta?”

Harry grimaces. “Imagine being gluten free! You could never have pasta. Or at least, not normal, nice delicious pasta. Just crappy, funny coloured gluten free stuff, imagine that.”

Louis shakes her head wearily but she manages a smile. “You’re a special kind of weird, aren’t you love?”

Harry frowns but then smiles broadly. “Maybe so, but you love me still, so.”

They make their way back to the library as the bell rings; Louis is reluctant to let Harry go but she’s arranged to meet with her photography teacher to pick something up or develop something or whatever, Louis doesn’t understand.

“I’ll be back in about half an hour, okay?”

Louis pouts. “No, not okay.”

“You’re too co-dependent, Lou, give the girl some breathing space!” Niall says, winking at Harry.

“Someone swallowed a dictionary.”

“Yeah and that’s not all,” Niall remarks shamelessly, and Harry’s loud laugh resonates down the hall as she carries on past the library towards the Art & Design block.

Louis watches her go and then follows Liam into the library. Niall bounds on ahead, crossing the floor to the computers. The IT block is the more frequented computer block so it's not really surprising that these library computers are free.

There’s only four, and Louis is about to point out that in another half an hour or so they’ll be a five piece again, but Niall takes the words right out of her mouth.

“Oh well, Harry will just have to sit and read a book or summat.”

Louis opens her mouth to argue but then shuts it again. She dumps her bag on the floor and throws herself down on the spinny chair. After an initial twenty minutes or so of browsing news sites and checking her email and basically doing _anything_ to avoid work, Louis plugs in her flash drive and brings up her English essay that she _really_ should be cracking on with now.

“I haven’t got past the first paragraph,” Niall says brazenly when Louis asks for advice.

“I’m almost finished mine, just gotta proof read it and maybe tweak my conclusion a bit,” Liam says, much more usefully. “Want me to look at it, Tommo?”

“Yeah, c’mon, come sit round here.”

Liam comes scooting around on her spinny chair and takes over the mouse, peering in at the screen, clicking and tapping until she’s read the two hundred and sixty eight words Louis has managed to get down; nine of which are the title and forty seven of which are the introduction.

“You’re on the right lines, I think,” Liam says eventually. “Keep at it. This second paragraph could go into more detail.”

“Bulk it out with a load of descriptive phrases,” Niall suggests helpfully. “Was not instead of wasn’t, did not instead of didn’t, that sorta thing.”

Liam shakes her head, looking like she wants to deck Niall. “Don’t listen to her. Just keep at it. It’s sections 5-9 of the textbook, if that helps.”

Louis smiles. Liam was never going to offer to write the essay for her, but this is good enough.

“Thanks, lover.”

“Who’s your new lover?” Harry’s voice sounds somewhere behind her. Louis spins on her chair to see her approaching, a bag in her hand that she didn't have before.

“Hey girl,” Louis greets her. “What’s that?

Harry immediately shuffles up onto the desk, throwing her school bag down. She opens the bag and takes out a stack of recently developed pictures, each one separated by a wafer thin sheet of tissue paper.

“Some of my practice shots,” She explains. “Julia said I could keep them, as they’re not actually going towards my final marks.”

Louis rolls her eyes; she can’t help it. She forgot that the hippie sorts in the creative subjects call their tutors by their first names.

“Pass ‘em ‘ere,” She instructs, holding out her hand, essay be damned. Harry passes her the photographs, handing them over carefully like they’re here babies. Which, really they probably are.

Louis removes the top sheet of tissue paper and studies the shadowy, atmospheric image of a bunch of flowers, the muted reds and pinks contrasting the dusty dark background.

“This is really good, Haz,” She murmurs, not looking up as she flips to the next one. It’s a close up of part of a road sign, gritty and blue-washed, in contrast to the smoky dark tones of the previous photo.

“Thanks,” Harry mumbles, sounding embarrassed.

There’s a black and white photo of one of the old factories in town, windows smashed and bricks scorched with burn marks from a fire years ago. There’s a photo of a mannequin from the drama block, everything blurry and out of focus apart from the elaborate costume necklace around its neck. There’s a photo of a stain glass window, the colours bright and bold and crisp.

“And these are just your practice shots?” Louis verifies, looking up. Harry is chewing on a strand of hair. “Bloody hell, you’re getting an A* for sure, babe.”

Harry blushes into her hair, accepting the pictures back and carefully wrapping the plastic bag around them and putting them in her school bag.

“There’s no computer for you, sorry Haz,” Niall interrupts bluntly.

“You can sit at mine if you like, H, I’m looking over this with Lou, anyway.” Liam offers kindly, earning her _aww_ ’s from Zayn and expletives from Niall.

Louis watches as Harry slides off the desk and takes Liam’s place. She tries her best to concentrate on what Liam is telling her.

In the end, Louis gives up and sighs. “Will you write it for me?”

“No!” Liam exclaims, scandalised. “C’mon, you haven't even got your book open anymore. Concentrate, Tommo.”

Zayn’s smirking face peers around the computer and Louis’ concentration well and truly gives up the ghost after that. She pulls out her phone and turn on her mobile data, browsing social media for a while. She taps into Instagram and sees that Harry has uploaded pictures of all her photos, all within the last five minutes or so. Despite the fact that they’re sitting almost directly opposite each other, Louis leaves a like on all the images and comments on a few.

In the next second her phone vibrates, and she expects a reply from Harry, but it’s actually her boss.

“Guess what? My boss just text me, she doesn’t need me in work tomorrow.” Louis announces.

“Oh, that’s a pain,” Harry sympathises, appearing in the gap between the two PC’s. “You’ll lose money.”

Louis shrugs. “Yeah, but a lie in Saturday morning? Worth it.”

Harry just smiles, shaking her head slightly. “Well if you’re happy then I am too, princess.”

“You’re disgusting,” Niall remarks; her face is emotionless but her claim is benign in nature, just ‘classic Niall banter’.

“If loving Lou is disgusting then I don’t wanna be undisgusting,” Harry remarks, sticking two fingers up at Niall who grabs them in the air and squeezes them gently.

“Undisgusting’s not a word, dickhead,” Zayn points out, but Louis’ sure Harry doesn’t care. She appreciates her girls’ sentiments.

Dawn shuffles past at that moment, not saying a word but throwing them a cold, evil stare. As she passes, the five of them burst into giggles.

♀♀

After a nice lie in and a bacon sandwich, Louis is ready for the day. One brother is at a birthday party, the twins are at a different birthday party and the other has gone with mum to get some new school trousers, so Louis has a bit of time to herself.

She runs a bath, chucking a Lush Sex Bomb bath bomb in. She shrugs her dressing gown off, drops it to the floor and wiggles out of her Superman pyjama bottoms, pulls her white vest over her head and off, and with the length of her bare leg in the corner of the shot, just enough to tease, she snaps a picture of her pretty pink bath and sends it to Harry.

She smiles happily to herself and rests her phone safely on the lid of the toilet as she lowers herself into the water. It’s so hot it takes her breath away as she sits down in it, skin immediately reddening with the heat. Fresh floral scents fill the air, blooming as Louis disturbs the rose blushed bubbles.

Her phone vibrates with a message. Before submerging herself completely she reaches over and grabs it.

It’s just several skull and crossbones emojis.

Louis snorts to herself and flips back to the camera, angling it downwards and lifting her bum up off the ceramic, bubbles slipping over her pink skin and revealing the jut of her hip bone, the hundred year old gem pierced through her belly button and just the beginnings of the swell of one boob, her nipple poking through the bubbles cheekily.

Louis finds that part funny, but she sticks a nice filter on the image, adding a slight blur to smooth out all her little silvery stretch marks, and sends it back. She gives it a minute and then calls Harry, putting her on loudspeaker and relaxing back into the bath, letting her shoulders slip under the heat.

“Hi love,” Harry answers, some rustling in the background.

“Hey gorgeous,” Louis announces to the air. “How are you?”

“Good,” Harry says, and Louis can hear her smile. “You uh, you’re in the bath, then?”

“Yep,” Louis says, grinning up at the ceiling, closing her eyes. “You got my messages then?”

Harry scoffs. “Um, yes Lou. I did.”

“I’m all wet,” Louis drawls airily, lifting her pointed toes out of the water and letting the lilt of the water slap against the inside of the bath. “Hot and wet. Naked in the bath.”

“Lou, am I on loudspeaker?” Harry hisses.

She giggles and opens her eyes, looking over at the phone on the loo seat, as if Harry’s actually there. Louis likes that; pretending they’re two or three years in the future and together in their own flat or house, Harry sitting on the loo while Louis has a bath, just chatting and laughing together.

“Lou?” Harry asks. “Have you drowned? What’s happening?”

“No, still here,” Louis says softly. “And nobody's home so loudspeaker is okay.”

“All right,” Harry says. “Do you want to come over later then?”

“Is that because I told you I was naked and wet?”

“No,” Harry says indignantly. “Well, not _only_ because of that.”

“Yeah, well I’ll see if my mum will give me a lift round,” Louis says. “They’ll all be home soon, I’m sure.”

“Okay,” Harry replies, rustling surrounding her end once again. “I’ve gotta go help mum, okay? Text me when you’re out the bath, all right?”

“Yes sir,” Louis salutes, even though Harry can't see her. “Love you.”

“Love you lots. Bye!”

Harry hangs up and the call disconnects itself, leaving Louis alone with her thoughts for a glorious thirty nine minutes before the front door clunks open downstairs and the sound of four annoying pre-teens fills the hallway.

♀♀

Louis takes precisely nineteen selfies in various states of undress; in just a towel, in knickers and no bra, in bra _and_ knickers, blue skinnies and no top and then finally a load once she’s pulled on her black turtleneck and dried her hair.

She picks one of the fully dressed ones for Instagram and then sets about putting some makeup on, because she can actually be bothered today.

“Mum, can you drive me to Harry's?” Louis asks immediately once she gets downstairs. There are two identical looking grey school trousers on coat hangers dangling off the cupboard door and she’s looking at them like they’re interesting. “Mum?”

“What?” She snaps suddenly. Louis recoils. “Sorry, Lou. What did you say, love?”

“Can you drive me to Harry’s?”

“When, now? No, Louis, I’m-”

“No, later. Like… five?”

It’s twenty five past four now. Louis doesn't think she’s being unreasonable, obviously, but the way her mum sighs and stares daggers at the wall clock suggests she might think Louis _is_ being unreasonable.

“So is that okay, or…?”

“You should be getting on with your driving lessons young lady; you’re only a few weeks off eighteen!”

“Yeah, yeah!” Louis waves a dismissive hand. “So is that okay then? To drive me to Haz’s?”

“Fine!” Jay exclaims, and then the twins come in asking for peanut butter on toast and Louis gets pushed to the bottom of the priority list once again.

♀♀

It’s actually raining when Louis and her mum step out of the door some twenty minutes later, so Louis feels less bad now, and her mum just tells her to shut up with a fond eye roll when Louis turns around to point that fact out.

With her hood up to protect her seldom-styled hair, Louis jumps into the huge seven seater Ford, glad to be able to take the front seat without a fight, without being kicked in the back and without having to listen to the twins’ party CD’s.

“Everything going well with Harry then, sweet?” Her mum asks as they head out of the estate towards the main road.

Louis rolls her eyes and silently groans with pre-emptive embarrassment. “Yeah, fine.”

“That’s good,” Jay smiles, eyes on the road. “Almost two years you’ve been together now, isn’t it?”

Louis wonders where she’s going with this. “Yes, two years in May.”

They’d got together in the May, right at the end of year eleven; after almost a year of almosts and will they won’t they’s they had finally got it right. That summer, from that sunny May afternoon all the way until starting sixth form in the September, they’d had the time of their lives.

“That’s lovely,” Jay remarks. “Have you thought about what you’re going to do after sixth form?”

 _No_ , Louis hasn't thought about life after sixth form because that would mean facing reality and that’s not something she wants to do. Not when Harry has plans for further education and Louis, well, she doesn't have plans past the end of this week, let alone six months from now.

 _Shit,_ it’s only six months. The thought turns Louis’ stomach and suddenly she feels sick, flushed in the cheeks.

“I don’t wanna talk about it mum,” She mumbles, resting her elbow on the edge of the car window and cupping her chin. She stares out the window, feeling ridiculous at her acute reaction.

“Lou,” Her mum reaches across and squeezes her leg lightly. “Lou, I wasn’t trying to upset you, love.”

That makes Louis’ heart jump up into her throat and she feels inexplicably close to tears now. She laughs wetly because it’s the only way she knows how to deal with the feeling. “I’m not upset!” She warbles, more shakily than she’d like.

“Babe,” Jay almost gasps, slowing the car right down and looking over desperately. She grabs Louis’ arm, trying to get her to face her. “Lou, don’t get upset sweetheart, it’s all right.”

Louis laughs again. “I know that! I’m not upset, I’m fine!”

They have to stop at traffic lights and as she crunches up the handbrake, Jay leans over once more. Louis turns sheepishly to face her.

“You’ve got almost nine months to figure this stuff out. There’s no use adding to your stresses unnecessarily, you’ve got lots of important things coming up soon; uni applications, exams, coursework deadlines.”

“Yeah, thanks mum, I’d forgotten _all_ about those!” Louis exclaims weakly, and Jay smiles back equally softly. Uni applications are due six weeks from now, the next six months are going to be a series of coursework deadlines and then exams start in May. “I don’t know about uni. I still don’t know.”

Jay releases the brake and they set off again, past the bright lights of the town; shop fronts, traffic lights, car headlights. “Don't worry about it for now, Loubear. We’ve got over a month to decide.”

Louis appreciates the ‘we’, but she can’t help but feel all alone in this.

Jay drops her off at Harry’s without another word. Louis kisses her cheek and waves as she drives off then approaches Harry’s front door and presses the bell carefully.

“Lou? What’s wrong?” Harry immediately asks upon opening the door. Not even hello; how does this girl do it?

Louis shrugs, feeling embarrassed. “Just talkin’ to me mum about us and uni and that, and it just… I dunno, freaked me out a bit.”

Louis steps inside the door, following Harry straight up the stairs to her room.

“What freaked you out?” Harry asks once they’re sat cross legged on her bed against the wall.

Louis shrugs again. “Just, I don’t know if I wanna go uni but the rest of you girls all are and you especially, like, if I go I don’t wanna follow you just for the sake of it but I also don’t wanna go off by myself and lose you.”

“What makes you think you’re gonna lose me?”

Louis scoffs. “Come on. Uni has like, such a vast array of characters. Like you could meet someone a million times cooler than me, someone who is a laugh and is pretty and most of all, is actually nearby.”

Harry has her head tilted to the side, watching Louis intensely. Louis stares back at her, her heart rate increasing. Then, a small smiles licks at the edges of Harry’s mouth.

“Did you just say ‘a vast array’?” Harry asks, breaking into a broad grin. “Who are you and what’ve you done with my girlfriend!”

Harry launches herself at Louis then, barrelling into her, all coconutty hair and pointy elbows.

“I have zero plans to find myself a new girlfriend, Lou,” Harry says. “Absolutely none. I love you. You’re my girl and you hopefully will be for the foreseeable future. Obviously I don’t know what’s gonna happen, and neither do you, but I don’t want to be without you, Lou. And you know it doesn’t matter to me, but I’d love you if you looked like the back end of a bus. To me you’re the prettiest girl in the whole world. I love you and you love me right? Right?”

Louis grins. “Yes, of course I love you, idiot.”

Harry harrumphs but presses a kiss to the tip of Louis’ nose. “Well then.” Harry says, eyes bright and sparkling. “Let’s put on a DVD shall we? Do you remember Miss Congeniality?”

♀♀

Twenty minutes from the end they have to pause the film to go down and eat tea. Anne has done chicken and it’s lovely; nice and peaceful just the three of them in Harry’s conservatory. Their cat sits on the window sill vibrating as she breathes and the radiator packs out heat.

Afterwards they go back to finish Miss Congeniality then put MTV Hits on and listen to the music in the background as they snuggle up close and chatter aimlessly, sharing the odd kiss here and there.

“Stay tonight?” Harry asks at about half past eight. Louis has been psyching herself up to prepare to leave Harry for the last half an hour or so. “C’mon, you don’t have anything to do tomorrow, do you? And neither do I.”

“Would your mum mind?”

“No, she blatantly won’t,” Harry says surely. “Text your mum and ask, go on? I’ll make it worth your while.”

Harry wiggles her eyebrows suggestively and Louis snorts with laughter. “You know I don’t need sexual favours to be convinced?”

“C’mon, let’s go ask,” Harry says, bounding up and out of bed. Louis heaves herself up and follows stiffly, cursing Harry’s athletic body.

It’s unlikely Anne will say no. Louis wouldn’t dream of asking Harry over to stay the night at hers because of all her brothers, but Anne has a far more liberal approach to sleepovers and is always telling Louis she is welcome anytime.

“Of course, loves, if it’s okay with your mum, Lou?”

“I’ve texted her, just waiting to hear back. She’s probably sorting one of my brothers out or something, y’know? Little… rascals that they are!”

“Of course, love, well that’s fine.” Anne smiles and disappears back into the conservatory.

Harry is smirking at her when she looks back round. “What are you grinning at, Chuckles?”

“You, getting all flustered and ‘proper’ when you talk to my mum,” Harry teases. “It’s cute.”

“I want to make a good impression!” Louis defends herself, poking out her tongue.

“Lou, we’re eighteen months in, I think we’re past good impressions. My mum knows what a bitch you are really.”

“I never said that!” Anne shouts from the conservatory, and Louis just about dies of embarrassment but Harry is loving it. She lets out a honking great seal laugh and clasps a hand to her tummy.

“It’s true though,” Harry says when she’s calmed down. “You’ve already made your good impression. My mum loves you.”

“Who can blame her really?” Louis asks, fluttering her eyelashes. “I am a delight.”

“You’re all right,” Harry shrugs, just as Louis’ phone vibrates on the countertop.

 **Mama Bear♥:** _Yes if its ok with Anne. Love you lots, be good. Text me in the morning xxx_

“Ah-ha!” Harry exclaims, reading over Louis’ shoulder. “She said yes. I knew she would!”

“I just thought, I don’t have any spare clothes,” Louis points out.

“You can just wear somethin’ of mine,” Harry replies almost instantaneously. “You look good in my stuff. And anyway, at least five pairs of those knickers in my drawer are yours anyway.”

Louis smiles. That’s probably true.

♀♀

For the rest of the evening they just lay around in Harry’s room, for a change. Harry gives Louis a strappy top and a pair of pyjama shorts to wear and Louis changes into them while Harry is in the shower. She lies back down on Harry’s bed, staring up at the ceiling.

When Harry returns, the very ends of her hair are damp but it’s otherwise dry, and she’s in a peach coloured towel and nothing else, smelling like roses and mint.

“Miss me?” Harry smiles as she shuts the door carefully behind her.

“You were only gone ten minutes,” Louis points out as she sits up.

Harry doesn’t say anything. She just drops her towel and wanders over to her chest of drawers, feigning oblivion. She makes a big scene of turning around, leaning over to pull open her knicker drawer. She selects a tiny pink pair, pushes the drawer closed and steps into the knickers one leg at a time. She moves a quarter turn as she shimmies them up her legs, wiggling her hips as she snaps the elastic against her skin. She smoothes the frilly edges over the curve of her bum and then turns the rest of the way round to _finally_ face Louis.

Louis knows that the perfect girlfriend would keep her eyes off Harry’s chest, but it's a bit difficult when she looks this good; milky white skin and the pale pink pants, soft, round breasts sitting pretty on her chest, her mound of curly brunette hair luminous around the edges from the glow fairy lights she stands in.

Louis had once told Harry that her knobbly knees on her matchstick legs reminded her of grapefruits on knitting needles. Harry had shrieked in horror and thumped her.

Harry giggles softly, going bashful all of a sudden. She reaches up to move her hair off her shoulders, letting her curls tumble down her back. Harry’s breasts are full and soft and they bounce as she moves; not like Louis’ own poor excuses for boobs that are basically just fried eggs on her chest.

“Babe...” Louis murmurs, not looking for any purchase, it’s more like an involuntary reflex.

“Lou,” Harry murmurs back, stepping forward once more and dropping onto her knees on the edge of the bed, either side of Louis’ thighs. Harry straddles her, hands firmly resting on her shoulders as she adjusts herself in Louis’ lap. “Have to be quiet.”

Louis nods in agreement. She absolutely doesn't fancy getting caught red handed by Anne; getting caught snogging in bed once was bad enough, and they were fully clothed then.

Louis wraps her arms around Harry’s body and guides her down, settling in the space that Harry’s legs instinctively provide. Harry’s breasts relax outwards without the support of a bra. Louis cups the left one first; leaning in, gently squeezing the flesh and running the flat of her tongue gently over Harry’s pink, perky nipple. Harry immediately shivers, making soft little contented noises as she twists her hips under Louis’ body. Louis flicks her tongue back and forth over the bud, feeling it grow and firm up in her mouth.  

Louis breaks off, reaches up to tuck her hair behind her ears and then goes back down to the right breast, nudging the soft swell into her mouth, sucking the nipple gently, running her tongue back and forth over and around it.

Harry lets out a low moan, lifting her head clean off the mattress and burrowing her face into the juncture of her elbow to try and suppress it. Louis pulses her own hips downwards onto Harry’s, desperate for purchase even though it’s barely anything.

She lets Harry’s nipple fall from her mouth and props herself up on one elbow as she leans in to kiss the guttural moans right off Harry’s lips. She feels blindly for Harry’s breast, the nipple still wet from her mouth.

Louis plays with the bud, rolling it between her thumb and forefinger and brushing the entirety of her palm lightly over it, catching it delicately on every ridge of her fingers. Harry whines obscenely into her mouth, her hips thrusting up off the bed uncontrollably and her grip iron tight like a vice on Louis’ back.

“Nghh, babe, I can’t- we…” She murmurs breathlessly, breaking away and panting heavily into Louis’ neck. “My mum…”

Louis nods resignedly, knowing Harry is right. Anne is accepting, but she’s not _that_ accepting. Besides, it’s not like they have to have sex _every_ time they’re together.

Harry sits up as Louis rolls off of her, collapsing onto the bed and staring up at the ceiling. She narrows her eyes, still getting her breath back, as Harry gets up, her slender frame moving uncharacteristically gracefully over to the chest of drawers to get a pyjama top.

Louis watches as Harry selects a mustard yellow t-shirt and slips it on over her head. She untucks her curls from the neckline and tugs the hem down. It just about reaches the waistband of her knickers and Louis can see her nipples through the thin material.

Harry saunters across the room and gets back into bed; it’s obvious that she knows exactly what Louis can see and how much it’s getting to her.

“Telly or music?” Harry asks as she settles in, reaching for the remote for the telly. “Music then we can just cuddle and fall asleep. Telly we have to pay attention and it’ll keep us awake.”

Louis knows that Harry doesn’t have trouble sleeping through _entire_ films, but she doesn’t argue. Harry plays music through the telly, the volume turned right down low. The room is bathed in the turquoise light of the default screen, a pixelated image of a CD spinning slowly in the centre.

They talk for a while in hushed tones, about exams and coursework and their English teacher and Louis’ birthday, all manner of things, until they begin falling asleep on each other. Harry rolls onto her other side, tucking her hair out of the way and shuffling back into the curvature of Louis’ shape. Louis throws her arm over Harry’s body, twirling the baggy hem of her t-shirt around the tip of her index finger.

“Love you lots, Lou-Lou.”

“Love you too, babe.”

♀♀

Louis falls asleep plastered to Harry’s back but wakes up facing the wall with a large void down the middle of the bed where they’ve got too hot and rolled away from each other in the night. December or not, sleeping next to Harry is like sleeping next to a fireball.

When she rolls over she finds Harry awake silently scrolling through her phone. Her concentration breaks as soon as she notices Louis awake. The sharp concentrating furrow of her brow softens and she locks the screen, no longer bathed in bluish light.

“Morning,” She smiles, burrowing down under the covers and snuggling up to Louis’ side. “Sleep well?”

Harry’s bed hadn’t always been the easiest to fall asleep in; Louis’d had trouble falling asleep in new places all her life, but she’s used to it now. The fabric softener Anne uses and the smell of Harry’s shampoo that transfers onto the pillow cases is familiar now; homely.

Louis nods, closing her eyes again. They just lay there quietly, slowly waking up their bones. Quite a while later, Louis asks if Harry too slept well. Harry then puts the TV on and they watch Sunday morning telly for an hour or so.

At about eleven o’clock, Anne knocks softly on the door and pokes her head around. Louis lies rigid in the bed, feeling embarrassed about Anne seeing her and Harry side by side in bed, but Anne and Harry are similarly unperturbed.

“Morning girls,” Anne smiles sweetly. “I’m popping into see Nan, Harry, then off to do the Tesco shop. I’ll be a few hours.”

“Okay,” Harry mumbles. “Can you buy some of those brownies off the bakery counter, please?”

“Will do,” Anne agrees. “Don’t spend all day in bed, okay girls? See you later on!”

“Bye mum!” Harry murmurs, already looking back at the TV screen.

“See you later, Annie.”  Louis smiles politely, her body still stiff and awkward under Harry’s flowery duvet cover.

Anne pulls the door closed gently and Louis listens to her go back downstairs. Harry snorts loudly next to her and she turns to her defensively.

“What?”

“You!” Harry laughs. “You went completely rigid on me there! It’s only my mum, Lou, she’s not bothered!”

Louis shrugs. She knows that they have no reason to be embarrassed, and that probably if one of them was a boy this wouldn’t even be an issue, but she can’t help but feel a bit awkward whenever Harry’s mum finds them in bed. Even though Harry has assured her a million times in the nicest possible way that nobody cares.

Anne pads around downstairs for what feels like another half an hour but it’s probably no more than a few minutes. Louis only relaxes properly once she hears the front door close and the sound of Anne’s car starting up on the driveway.

“Aren’t you gonna kiss me good morning?” Harry asks, grinning though she’s closed her eyes again and her heads still on the pillow.

“Not until you’ve brushed your teeth,” Louis says, though really she is just after an excuse to brush her own teeth.

Harry opens her eyes, rolls them and then pulls back the duvet.

“Hey, I’m cold!” Louis exclaims.

“You wanted me to brush my teeth!” Harry argues back. “I have to get out of bed to do that.”

“Fine,” Louis sighs, sighing exaggeratedly as Harry tugs the duvet completely off the bed, leaving her exposed in her little shorts and Harry’s strappy top. She vaults out of bed and follows Harry down the landing to the bathroom.

Louis uses Harry’s toothbrush; the bristles are still damp and minty from where she’s just used it herself but she figures they’ve done a lot worse than just sharing a toothbrush. Harry slaps a kiss to Louis’ temple while she’s mid-brush, foaming minty froth at the mouth. Harry just laughs at her and disappears back to her bedroom.

When Louis gets back to Harry’s room, Harry has re-made the bed. Louis climbs over her clumsily, not-so-accidentally digging her knee into Harry’s thigh, and tumbles into place in the bed between Harry’s body and the wall.

Harry is on her and kissing her almost immediately. Their Colgate-fresh breath mingles together and makes Louis’ teeth feel cold and sensitive as her mouth falls open responsively to the light nudge of Harry’s bottom lip against her own.

Harry presses a single, soft kiss to Louis’ bottom lip and then prompts Louis for more, teasing the tip of her tongue into her mouth.

“Off,” Louis instructs, grappling with the hemline of Harry’s yellow t-shirt. Obligingly, Harry breaks away, sitting back on her heels and pulling the t-shirt up off over her head. Her hair, caught in the neckline, springs free as she pulls the garment off and Louis is reminded again by that blinding giggling grin just how beautiful Harry is.

Harry lifts herself back up onto her knees, the jut of her hip bones becoming more prominent at this angle, her knicker line sitting just on the protrusions. On the left side is a spot of permanent depigmentation from an Indian ink tattoo gone wrong in year ten.

“Lay down,” Louis instructs, and they swap places; Harry laying down across the bed with her head propped up on the pillows, hair splayed out around her and Louis knelt next to her, absently fiddling with the soft pink material. “Can I take these off?”

Harry nods, eyes big and round and inquisitive. She lifts her bum off the bed and Louis pulls the pants down, over her knobbly knees and bony ankles and off. Harry isn’t shy at all; she sets her bum back down, shuffles a bit to get comfy and then lets her heels slide down the bed until her legs are flat again.

Louis can’t help but stare; she does it every time Harry lets her see her like this and she’ll probably do it every time in the future too. Harry’s legs are silky smooth and almost pearlescent, littered with a few clumsy bruises here and there, and fine blonde hairs over her thighs, almost imperceptible.

Harry’s skin is always soft and silky because she actually goes to the effort of going through the rigmarole of moisturising after every shower, unlike Louis who has dry patches, calloused edges and toenails that she paints once a year and once a year only.

Carefully, Louis reaches over and nudges Harry’s legs apart at the knee, shifting over her until she’s kneeling in between the V of Harry’s legs. Harry isn’t particularly freckly but where she does have them are odd places; Louis loves them.

On the inside of her thigh, on the strong wraps of muscle she has a total of three perfectly round terracotta freckles, as well as one underneath her left breast that is visible when lying down, and one under her collar bone. On her other leg she has an unidentifiable pink mark a few millimetres in length and a lovely silvery coloured stretch mark in the shape of an infinity symbol. It’s Louis’ favourite place to kiss Harry, has been since the day Harry had finally been brave enough to reveal it to her.

“Can I?” Louis asks, pressing the very tip of her finger gently against Harry’s folds and licking her lips. Harry nods, suddenly silent. She gets like this, sometimes.

With permission granted, Louis carefully runs her finger back down the other way and up again, carefully pushing past the outer seam and nudging her way in slowly. She stays shallow, running her fingertip up and down where Harry is just starting to get a bit slick. She carefully brushes over Harry’s hidden clit when she’s at the top; Harry sucks down a deep in breath and curls her toes as Louis does so.

She tries it again, gently, and Harry is equally as responsive. Feeling validated, Louis lifts up onto her knees and whilst keeping one hand on Harry she rolls her way up Harry’s body, supporting herself on one elbow and pressing their lips back together.

She collects Harry’s natural wetness on the tips of her fingers and works around her clit, under it, up against it and in the moist softness of the area directly below the hood, slow and teasingly prolonged just the way she knows Harry likes it.

Harry whispers her name repeatedly, wiggling her hips to manually get a bit more purchase off Louis’ tentative touches. Louis’ fingertip delves a bit deeper, feeling even more how wet and warm Harry is under her. Because of her.

“Touch me- my… uhh fuck-” Harry squirms as Louis returns her focus to Harry’s clit, pressing up against it under the cover of her hood before her finger slips down in Harry’s wetness to land directly atop the pulsing nub.

“You feel so good,” Louis murmurs, the reaction she’s gleaning from Harry making her own heat quiver between her legs. She clamps her thighs together, squeezing tightly against the good feeling as she continues to work Harry, kiss Harry all over.

“Want your mouth on me,” Harry murmurs as Louis buries her face into her neck. Louis bobs back up, blinking at her girl who is staring up at her, innocent and owlish.

“You’ve got my mouth babe,” Louis says, placing down another kiss on Harry’s bitten pink lips.  

“No,” Harry murmurs against the kiss. “Want you to eat me.”

Louis’ insides flip at Harry’s request; significantly wetter between her folds all of a sudden. Funny that.

“Y-yeah,” she confirms, her head swimming at the thought. She’s suddenly longing for the taste, can’t get to Harry quick enough. It’s been too long since they’ve done this. Harry shuffles up the bed as Louis shuffles down it, motioning to the thin black elastic around Harry’s wrist.

“Gimme that,” She grabs it from Harry and ties her hair into a messy ponytail, little tufts sticking up around her hairline.

She leans in; she could never describe the smell or the taste or the way it makes her feel, she just knows that her heart is beating a bit faster now.

She runs the tips of two fingers between Harry’s folds, from her glistening pink opening to her hood and then hooks those two fingers into her mouth, clamping down around the taste before pulling her fingers from her mouth and finally touching her tongue to Harry.

Harry’s reaction is immediate and encouraging; the twist of her hips and the lift of her bum off the mattress bringing her closer as Louis licks a messy stripe up between the folds. She grips the backs of Harry’s thighs to keep her in place, as desperate for this as Harry herself seems to be. With the salty-sweet taste of Harry on her tongue she bows down on her clit, licking around and back and forth with the pointed tip of her tongue before flattening it out and going for something a bit more substantial.

By the time Louis licks the sensitive nub into her mouth and sucks down onto it, Harry is _shrieking_ above her, writhing about on the bed so obviously trying to keep herself under _some_ control; Louis is _very_ endeared by it all, despite the compromising situation.

She lets go of Harry’s thighs and they slip down the bed slightly. Louis sees Harry’s tummy muscles quiver as she draws her legs back up, lifting her feet clean off the bed and clutching her legs in place herself. That’s Louis’ cue.

She runs two fingers of one hand down the inside of Harry’s thighs, collecting a bit of slick - Harry’s or her own, who knows - and palpates Harry’s sticky sweet lips before delving in with one digit then soon after the second one too.

Harry is impossibly warm and wet inside, her walls spongy and lush. Louis, admittedly without the best coordination in the world, focusses on pushing her fingers in and out of Harry whilst still sucking down on her throbbing clit.

Harry’s support of her legs is the first thing to go. Her hands slide out from behind her knees and her feet slap the mattress. She digs her heels in and the previously taut wraps of thigh muscle soften and encase Louis’ cheeks as she starts to come.

Harry is noisy throughout her orgasm. Louis brings her fingers out, feeling ridges on the pads when she rubs them idly together. Harry’s wetness is also on her face, around her mouth, smudged messily over her right cheek and even on the tip of her nose. She loves that.

Harry lays there trembling and giggling nervously, letting her legs fall outwards so Louis can sit back and admire the shimmering mess they’ve made together.

“So good,” Harry murmurs, staring up at the ceiling. Louis looks up at her, the muscles in the base of her neck feeling warm from the angle she’d been in. “So good, Lou-Lou.”

Harry reaches out blindly for Louis and then opens her eyes, lifting her head an inch off the pillow to seek Louis out again. Louis rolls forward on her knees, propping herself up on all fours over Harry’s shaking, spent body. She kisses Harry, face still untouched. Harry immediately groans into her mouth as Louis presses their lips together and then nudges past Harry’s lips with her tongue.

Louis is plenty wet from what she’s just done for Harry; she can feel it between her legs and saturated through her shorts. She’ll have to do some pretty stealthy work later on to get them into the wash without anyone realising.

Harry’s hand tugging at the waistband of said shorts takes Louis’ attention away from laundry and back to the here and now; her orgasm.

“Want to make you- need to feel good, baby,” Harry murmurs. Just the glint in Harry’s olive green eyes and her determined smile is almost enough to get Louis off.

Harry’s hand dips inside Louis’ sodden shorts, her fingers running along her messy wet slit to find her clit; pulsing and sensitive. Louis drops her hips, pushing down against Harry’s thigh in a desperate attempt to get more from Harry’s fingers. She writhes against Harry, feeling her release growing ever closer as Harry’s fingers slip over her clit. She crashes down, unable to hold up her own body weight as she starts to come. With their sweaty, shaking bodies tangled up in each other Louis sobs through it and clings onto Harry, wondering when the world is going to stop spinning and when her heart is going to slow back down.

It feels like hours before either of those things happen, but it’s probably only thirty seconds or so really. She rolls her weight off Harry, mumbling a vacant apology.

“That was- wow,” She murmurs, eloquently, once the world starts regaining some semblance to the one she knows.

“Yep,” Harry says with a soft chuckle and emphasis on the P. “Wow indeed.”

Louis turns onto her side and rests her head on Harry’s tummy, pressing her ear to the soft expanse and peering up Harry’s body to where her head is propped lazily up on pillows and she’s watching Louis with a sated smile. Louis can still hear the heavy thud of Harry’s heart echoing around her body, as well as the odd gurgling of her tummy.

“You sound like you’ve got aliens in there.” Louis comments, yelping when Harry rightfully smacks her bare shoulder.

♀♀

By the time Anne gets home they’re out of bed and downstairs in the living room on opposite sofas watching Friends on Comedy Central and eating bowls of cheesy pasta that Harry knocked up for them.

“Nice to see you two have had a productive morning!” Anne exclaims with a fond smile as she dashes past laden with bags. Harry dutifully rests her bowl down on the carpet and springs up off the sofa to help Anne.

Louis eats her pasta one spiral at a time, distracted while Friends is on an advert break. The front door slams shut and then Harry reappears, kicking off her shoes again and letting them land in the middle of the floor.

“You two won’t need lunch then?” Anne shouts from the kitchen before proceeding to mumble away to herself quite happily. Louis smiles and Harry rolls her eyes.

Louis stays until just gone four so she can walk home while it is still relatively light out, and most importantly, not raining.

She and Harry share a kiss on the doorstep, too in love to worry about anyone who might see.


	2. Chapter 2

Louis’ Monday doesn’t begin well. After spending the weekend with Harry, going to bed alone in her own bed and waking up alone in her own bed is quite the disappointment.

The niggling pain in her left side is back again, and for a horrible moment she fears that she’s got her period again, too soon. Thankfully she hasn’t, so she pulls on a pair of baby blue lace knickers and steps into her school trousers.

She decides to have a proper breakfast instead of sitting and putting some mascara and lip balm on, and while she’s stood at the toaster waiting for it to pop, Zayn texts her telling her she’s not going to be in today.

While Louis is replying, one of the twins jumps in and nicks her toast.

“Oi, you little-”

“You snooze you lose, Lou!” He shrieks, plastering it in a sinful amount of peanut butter that turns Louis’ stomach. With a scowl she puts two more slices down and guards the toaster like a hawk while it cooks.

Even though it’s winter it hasn’t been tremendously cold so far, very rainy but not too cold, but this morning it’s like stepping into a freezer as she steps outside and an icy blast of wind hits her. Niall and Liam are late, dawdling up the street as Louis loiters at the end of her garden path waiting for them to catch up.

“Nice of you both to show up!” Louis mutters, rolling her eyes as Liam and Niall approach, deep in conversation. Louis catches Liam glaring at Niall as she drags her eyes away and over to Louis. She’s about to question it but then Niall launches into some great spiel and Louis forgets.

♀♀

All Miss Allbright goes on about during tutor time is the end of term and the upcoming mock exams that will start in the New Year. Louis listens to the odd word or two, but mostly she just wants to block out any talk of exams and finishing sixth form. It’s all crept up on her too soon.

Her eyes wander around the room, picking Harry out automatically. She’s texting under the desk which is most unlike Harry. Louis wonders if she woke up in the twilight zone this morning because  _ nothing _ feels right.

Her first lesson of the day is double media studies. Not even that is enjoyable today; Mrs Hall is gunning for them with their coursework. It’s always been a huge part of their course, more than fifty percent of it, and in the first year it was Louis’ favourite part of all of her subjects. But now, she knows that what she is creating is counting towards her final mark, and that if she messes up the last two years will all have been for no reason at all. And that’s not even taking possible uni applications into consideration.

Ed is looking at his phone whenever Mrs Hall looks away, Perrie spends almost half an hour just colouring in the bubble letters of her title and Leigh and Jade who sit to her left and her right are talking around her almost the entire lesson. No one else seems to be panicking so why is she?

She gets waylaid at the end of the lesson talking to Mrs Hall about something that she expected would only be a brief exchange, so by the time she gets out into the corridors the bell is ringing overhead.

With a sigh she slopes off firstly to the loo and then to business studies. Niall and Liam are already there, of course. They’re talking about something but Niall is staring off into space, focussing on Louis as she approaches.

“You two are up to something,” Louis says as she slumps into her seat, letting her bag fall to the floor with an ungraceful thump.

“No we’re not!” Liam exclaims breezily.

“Are you planning a surprise party for me?” Louis asks, mostly as a joke, but when Liam and Niall’s blank faces staring back at her quickly turn to ones of guilt, Louis realises they’d completely forgotten her approaching birthday, let alone a party for it.

“Oh my God!” She exclaims, garnering some attention from the rest of the class. “My birthday is Christmas Eve, _ how _ could you forget that date?”

“We didn’t forget!” Liam hurries to reassure her. “It’s not that we forgot, we just-”

“We would’ve remembered closer to the time!” Niall interrupts, leaning over to rest a stupid hand on Louis’ arm. Louis snatches it away with a scowl. “C’mon Tommo, it’s all right.”

“Well what are you plotting if it’s not that?” She asks. She doesn’t miss the way, again, Liam looks like a bunny caught in headlights and Niall becomes overly casual. 

“Well, if I told you that I’d have to kill you!” She exclaims as Liam folds her arms.

Louis scowls at them both, shaking her head in despair. “Whatever!”

At that moment, Mr Maguire bursts in through the door with his booming great voice and they’re all silenced.

♀♀

♥ **H:** _ Having my lunch in the art block babe ♥ see you in the library for study period xo _

Louis rolls her eyes again – she’s really in danger of getting them stuck that way permanently – as she reads Harry’s message. She never realised that out of all the things she could lose Harry to, her love affair with photography would be the culprit.

“Harry’s bailed again,” Louis says with a sigh. “Come on, let’s go and drown our sorrows in fried food.”

The three of them make their way from business studies to the cafeteria, joining the queue with the smell of the dish of the day chicken curry burning hot in their nostrils. 

♀♀

“Is Harry cheating on me?” Louis asks suddenly, just as Liam is shovelling a mouthful of foul smelling curry into her mouth.

“What?” She splutters, setting down her fork and swallowing hurriedly. “No, why the hell would you think that?”

“Well everyone’s being funny, and now she’s mysteriously not here-”

“She’s doing extra credit photography coursework, Lou.” Niall interrupts.

She shrugs. “Yeah, well how do _ I _ know that? You lot are all being weird. Zayn’s not even here, I bet that’s all a conspiracy!”

“Shut up and stop sulking!” Niall laughs. “You know what Harry’s like with her education, especially photography. If it was between being friends with us lot and being guaranteed an A* in photography, she’d drop us in a heartbeat.”

“Me included?” Louis asks, throat feeling a bit tight all of a sudden.

“You included.” Niall confirms, but Liam notices and slaps her arm.

“Stop it, Nialler,” She warns. “You’re not funny.”

“I am!” Niall argues indignantly.

“You’re not,” Louis and Liam mutter at the same time, before Liam thankfully changes the subject. “Tell Lou what happened on Friday on your driving lesson.”

Niall’s face lights up, making an O with her mouth and slapping her hands together in delight. “Oh my  _ God _ , it was so funny! Listen to this!”

♀♀

Harry’s ten minutes late to study period but as they are pretty much free to do what they want (within reason) nobody cares. Apart from Louis. She sits in the library stewing as the seconds tick by and Harry still isn’t bursting through the door. 

“A watched pot never boils, Lou,” Liam says, looking up from her page surreptitiously.

Louis glowers at her. “You sound like a right old grandma sometimes, y’know Payno?”

Liam shrugs with a small smile then her eyes light up and she nods towards the door. “Here she is.”

Louis looks back around, seeing Harry bounding across the room with a quizzical smile on her face.

“Hey girls, I was just thinkin’ as I was walking here, why can you be overwhelmed, and underwhelmed, but never just whelmed?” Harry asks, obviously deadly serious. 

“What?” Niall snorts.

“You know, like just a permanent state of okay? Like neutral. The perfect amount of whelm?”

Niall shakes her head and Liam just smiles; Harry looks around bewildered, wondering what she’s said wrong, but Louis just leaps to her feet, grabs her by the wrist and motions towards the toilets. She doesn’t even look back to see what kind of disgusted faces the other two girls are pulling at them.

Louis barges through the door, heading straight to the furthest stall. The toilets clearly haven’t been visited today as they still smell relatively fresh, like bleach and floral air freshener.

“You okay, Lou-Lou?” Harry asks, peering in with her head tilted.

Louis sighs, giving up on being rational before she’s even tried. “I missed you.” She harrumphs, and Harry smiles. “Those two are being funny with me and I’m stressin’ about media studies and I’ve got flippin’ period pain  _ again _ and I can’t- I just… I’m fed up. I wanted you there.”

“I’m sorry,” Harry says softly. “I’m here now.”

Louis sniffles sadly. “I guess so.”

Harry rolls her eyes fondly. She reaches down and presses her hand to Louis’ tummy, just below the waistband of her trousers. “Where does it hurt? Here?”

“Yeah,” Louis nods morosely. “Down the left, and in my back too.”

“Aw babe,” Harry sympathises, pulling her in closer. She slinks her arms around Louis’ body and she steps forward to sink into Harry’s body. She hooks her chin onto Harry’s shoulder and stares at the salmon pink coloured wall tiles. With a sigh she shuts her eyes and holds tight to Harry.

“I love you,” She whispers forlornly. “I’ll love you forever. Even in six months’ time.”

She hears Harry murmur under her breath, “Six months…” Then she stands up, coaxing Louis out of their embrace gently. “Not this again, babe.”

“Yes, this again!” Louis exclaims, trying to step back to no avail. She hits the cubicle wall; she can’t go any further. 

“Lou!” Harry exclaims, letting the tension fall out of her shoulders. “I told you last time babe, you can’t worry about those sorts of things, babe. I love you now, what’s gonna stop me loving you in six months? This-” She gestures between them, “Isn’t going to end when we leave this place.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Well, obviously, I can’t be one hundred percent sure, but I know that unless you do something dead awful like join a cult or become a puppy murderer, I’m not going to fall out of love with you.”

“But uni; I still don’t know what I’m doing an’ you’re dead set on-”

“Why would it change how I feel?” Harry asks. “I love you. So much. More than anything.”

“There will be people everywhere in uni, all sorts of different people. Here, it’s just us. There, wherever you end up, there’ll be… there’ll be more options.” She fritters off, feeling pathetic and feeling that tight feeling in her throat creeping back again.

“Are you seriously saying that because there’ll be more lesbians in uni that’s why you’re worried? Do you not trust me or something?”

“Of course I do, I just… I don’t stand a chance against those other girls out there. I obviously think you’re gorgeous, what’s gonna stop a million other girls –  _ and _ boys probably – thinking it too?”

“Well, I can’t see that happening, but even if someone did… _fancy_ _me_ ,” Harry is blushing and looks painfully embarrassed. “Then I would just tell them I’ve got a lovely girlfriend at home, who hopefully will be coming up to see me every few weekends or so, anyway. That is assuming you’re not right there with me, which, I’d love it if you were.”

Louis ignores the last bit for now and studies Harry’s face, sniffing fiercely as she breaks into a grin. “Why do you always know the right thing to say?”

Harry shakes her head, her hair bouncing. “It’s not ‘the right thing’, Lou, it’s the truth. C’mere, babe.”

Louis fiddles with the hem of Harry’s school jumper as they kiss, eventually hoisting it far enough up her body that she gets the hint and allows Louis to pull it up and off of her, dropping it to the floor – thank God it’s clean.

The top two buttons of Harry’s white shirt are already undone and Louis has a go at three more. Harry giggles, making a slight scene about trying to stop her but she doesn’t try very hard.

Once sufficient buttons are undone, Louis gets a good look. Harry’s breasts fill the cups of her coral bra, a gold thread running through and porcelain pink skin showing through the lace.

Louis brushes Harry’s hair off her shoulders and nuzzles into her neck, scattering buttery soft kisses across her skin.

“Lou, we’re supposed to- this is study period!” Harry whimpers in her ear, high and fast.

“Perfectly good use of the study period in my opinion,” Louis replies, but she knows that realistically they’re not going to be having sex in a toilet at school. Though they often remark that these toilets are habitually deserted, one of these days they _ are _ going to get caught out.

Harry presses three closed-mouth kisses to Louis’ lips as she buttons her shirt back up then she bends down to pick up her jumper and springs back up with a flourish.

“You’re lucky these floors are clean, Tomlinson.”

They slink out together, re-joining Niall and Liam. Louis hauls her bag into her lap and stares into it blankly. She’s got her media studies notes crammed inside, the spiral bound notebook just slightly wider than her bag so the seams heave desperately. She takes one look at the crumpled pages along the spine and decides she’s not interested in that. Her English textbook sits up alongside it and her geography papers that she stuffed in on Thursday and hasn’t looked at since.

Half-heartedly she pulls out the dog eared geography sheets and studies them. She stares, trying to get the words to go in, but they just don’t. She keeps her head down but shifts her eyes around their small circle; Liam has her nose in her sports therapy notes, Niall is looking at the same geography sheets as Louis but with a much calmer look on her face, and Harry – for once – isn’t looking at her photography portfolio but her biology textbook. Every so often, she leans over and peers in at Liam, conferring about something science-y.

With a huff, Louis puts her stuff down and flounces back off to the loo. She pulls her pretty, pointless pink pants down and has a wee, staring at a disgusting lump of old chewing gum stuck under the coat hook.

She continues to sit there after she’s finished, making no attempt to move. She knows what’s waiting for her on the other side of this door; revision, exams, coursework deadlines, words on a print-out that make no sense whatsoever-

“Lou?”

Louis’ focus springs back to the here and now and she realises it’s Liam calling her name softly on the other side.

“I’m ‘avin’ a wee, Liam.” She replies curtly, hoping she’ll get the hint and leave. 

“Are you okay?” Liam persists. “You’ve gone very quiet.”

“That’s ‘cause I’m having a wee.”

“No, out there. All day. Are you stressed?”

“No, everything’s fine,” Louis lies. “Exams are fine and uni applications are just fucking great. Six months from now Harry’s gonna go and leave me and my life is going to be over and I’m dead pleased about that, too.”

“Lou,” Liam says, closer this time. Louis can see her shadow under the gap in the cubicle door. “It’s all right, hun. We’re all in this together, aren’t we? At the end of the day, we’re all in the same boat.”

Louis’ mind jumps from the High School Musical reference to wondering how many times Liam can use a different catchphrase to convey the same basic message.

“S’alright for you lot that’ve already made your minds up,” Louis mumbles. “I haven’t got a bloody clue. How are we supposed to make life decisions at seventeen years of age, it’s too young! Media studies, business, English and  _ fucking _ geography! What good are they gonna do me, stupid hodge-podge of subjects.  _ What  _ was I thinking?”

She can feel stupid hot tears burning behind her eyes and she scrubs her face resolutely, determined not to cry. 

“You don’t have to decide right now, Lou. We’ve got another six weeks.”

Louis scoffs. “And what if I’ve not made up my mind by then?”

“Gap year?” Liam says without hesitating.

Louis scoffs again and rolls her eyes. “Yeah right. Those are for travelling and ‘finding yourself’. Like I’ve got the money for that.”

She shakes her head and stands up resolutely. She pulls up her knickers, flushes and lets herself out of the stall, to be greeted by Liam –  _ and _ Harry.

Louis stares between her best friend and her girlfriend. Liam is standing right by the toilet door, looking concerned, and Harry is leaning against one of the sinks, legs outstretched and crossed at the ankles.

“Spying on me are you?” Louis says to Harry, a bit more coolly than she would’ve maybe liked.

“Lou-Lou, we’re worried about you, love. _ I’m  _ worried about you.” Harry says, and Liam is by her side nodding earnestly in agreement. “You’ve been off all day. It’s okay, y’know, you’ll be okay. Exams are shit, yeah, but I know you can do it. You’re gonna ace media studies.”

Louis shrugs. “Unless I wanna be a journalist or a bloody news reader, I don’t think that’s gonna do me much good, babes.”

“I dunno, you’d make a well fit weather girl,” Harry says with a scheming gleam in her eye. “You can use your English A-Level for writing your own scripts, media studies for y’know, being on the telly, Geography for telling north from south, and business studies for eventually taking over the whole of the BBC.”

Louis stares unwaveringly at Harry as she gets all of that out in one breath. She looks really pleased with herself once she’s finished, and Liam is staring at her too, grinning. Louis collapses in a giggle too, stepping towards Harry and wrapping an arm around her waist casually.

“Problem solved, I think!” Liam smiles. Louis looks at Harry and nods. “C’mon, girls. Niall’s sat out there like Billy No Mates.”

♀♀

Louis and Harry walk home together, as far as the fork in the path where they have to head off in different directions. Louis can’t hang about tonight as her mum’s working late so she has to watch her brothers.

“Cheer up tonight, babes.” Harry says as they’re parting ways. “Eat a load of chocolate to feel better and I’ll see you tomorrow. Triple English!”

Louis groans; triple English sounds awful but a whole morning together with her four girls makes it one of her favourite parts of the week.

“I’ll text you later, okay?”

Harry nods. “Make sure you do. I love you.”

“Love you too.”

They part with a kiss and Louis trudges home. It’s only quarter to four but already starting to get dark; the sun is low and blinding in the sky, only finally getting out of Louis’ eyes once she turns onto her street.

The boys, to their credit, give her a fairly easy time of it that evening. She makes them turkey dinosaurs, oven chips and beans for tea and they all eat it without too much fuss. Afterwards, once the boys have all left the table, Louis stays there. She pulls out her phone and the vibration from earlier that she assumed was just a junk notification is actually a text from Liam.

**Liammm:** _ Hi hun. Sorry for cornering u in the loos today, we just want u to know that we’re there for u if u need to talk, ok? I no Im not the first choice but speak to Haz if u don’t wanna speak to us lot. She will help u get thru it. Xxx _

Louis frowns at the ‘not the first choice’ bit. Those words stand out on the screen; the weight of the implication behind them sits uneasily in her chest.

_ ‘Im sorry if ive been a shit friend recently. You know I love you loads Payno. See you tomorrow xxxxxxxx’ _

She leaves the boys with strict instructions not to do anything stupid until mum gets home and barges her way into the bathroom for a bath. She lays perfectly still under a blanket of lemon scented bubbles until her mum knocks on the door and politely asks that she remove herself so the boys can shower.

♀♀

Tuesday is better than that shitty Monday yesterday, and it seems as if Louis was just having a bad day. Zayn is back, still full of cold. Louis’ pain doesn’t feel as bad today, though the tops of her legs are definitely aching. She washes down two paracetamol with a mouthful of Coke Zero under the watchful, scowling eye of Miss Duncan. 

Louis maintains a resolute exterior; screwing the lid back on the flat drink and reaching down to put it back inside her bag.

“You okay?” Harry mouths to her across the room. She nods back and goes back to focussing on what she’s written down in her English notes.

“Come on,” Harry prompts her at break time. They’ve just sat through double English and they’ve got one more period after break to get through, then a short study period then double business studies.

Harry leads her to the cafeteria, and they join the queue for the break time snacks that they’re quite shamefully provided with so close to lunchtime. 

“You were taking painkillers in English,” Harry says, a statement rather than a question. Louis just nods silently. “Is it still hurting?”

Louis rolls her eyes as she reaches for a packet of crisps. “No, just fancied a couple of paracetamols, Harry.”

“Maybe you should go to the doctors, Lou?”

“It’s period pain, Harry. I’m not going to the doctors for period pain; they’ll think I can’t handle a little bit of blood!”

“But it’s not period pain is it, it’s all the time, babe.”

Louis shakes her head and hands over fifty pence to the dinner lady. “No, I don’t need to. I just need to give the paracetamol more time to kick in.”

Later that evening, the twinges begin during tea and by the time she’s pushed her half-eaten jacket potato away she’s feeling completely encased by nausea.

“Where are you going?” Jay asks as she gets up in an attempt to slink off for another bath.

“Bath.” She answers monosyllabically.

“Again?” Jay sighs. “You had a bath yesterday, love. We’re gonna run outta-”

“Please?” She interrupts weakly. “I just… my back hurts and I’m cold.”

Jay immediately stiffens up, concern crossing her face. “Your back hurts? Why does your back hurt?”

Louis shrugs, aware of her brothers within earshot. “Just does. Can I go please?”

Jay sighs again, letting her shoulder slump in defeat. “Fine.” She says. “But don’t overfill it.”

♀♀

Louis wakes the next morning with little red flecks in her underwear and the unmistakable sound of her mum on the phone downstairs.

“Hello, yes, I’d like to make an appointment for my daughter.”

♀♀

Louis’ appointment is at 3pm on Friday so she leaves half way through study period. Zayn offers to bunk off and go with her, much to Harry’s dismay, but Louis’ mum’s picking her up outside the school so Louis declines Zayn’s offer. It’s only quarter past two when she sneaks out of the computer room, so she goes via the main entrance where there’s a vending machine.

She’s just crumpling her empty packet of Maltesers into her coat pocket when her mum’s dark blue Ford pulls into the car park. They’re ten minutes early for the appointment so they sit in the car and argue about what Louis is going to tell the doctor once she’s in there.

“This is homophobic,” Louis mutters under her breath, only trying to wind her mum up. Which it does.

“Louis stop it, you know I don’t like that.” Louis sighs and folds her arms across her body defensively. “Come on, we’d better get going.”

The doctor is a young guy, probably no more than ten years older than Louis herself, and she just about dies when her name gets called and they trundle down the corridor to the room behind him.

“So, what brings you here today?” He asks, quite politely and very professionally.

Louis’ cheeks are flaming hot and probably an attractive shade of red as she mumbles her reply. “My mum booked me the appointment because my… my periods are quite painful and they don’t come every month like they should.”

“She’s in agony,” Jay interrupts. Louis rolls her eyes as the doctor calmly flits his attention over to her mum. “Every month – not even every month, all the time, bleeding when she shouldn’t be; constantly with her hot water bottle. We spend a fortune on Feminax!”

Louis is mortified at some of the questions she has to answer, including but not limited to her cycles, her symptoms and her sex life. The doctor nods sympathetically, even though he obviously can’t relate. He asks her how she is getting on with the tracking app and she has to blush and mumble that she downloaded it but doesn’t always use it. Doesn’t use it at all. He kindly encourages her to maybe think about setting up a profile and keeping tabs on her cycles, and that if she was referred to a specialist they would want to know all about that. The thought terrifies Louis and she doesn’t really recover after that.

She chews the ripped skin around her thumb as he taps her answers into his computer. It feels like a lifetime before he finally slots his fingers together and leans back in his chair.

“Okay, well the good news is there are lots of options available to us to help with this.”

♀♀

‘Lots of options’ turn out to be the pill in the first instance. Louis was mildly horrified to hear this suggestion, obviously never considering it for a second, but he explains it to her and after the embarrassment has died down she accepts it. She also gets a prescription for tablets to take at different points in the month, and he reminds her about paracetamol as if she couldn’t have worked  _ that _ one out herself.

Later on that day, she meets Harry at Poppy’s and they sit in the back with teas and chocolate chip scones purchased with Louis’ staff discount.

“I’m now officially on the pill,” Louis tells Harry with a sarcastic smile. “So no getting me pregnant now.”

Harry pulls a face. “The pill? Is that supposed to help is it?”

Louis shrugs. “I guess so, yeah. I didn’t really ask. He knows what he’s doing, right?” 

“He?” Harry splutters, and Louis nods morosely. “What else did he do? What did he ask you? Did you tell them the truth?”

“’Course I did,” Louis rolls huffs. “He asked me about everything, about how long it’s been going on for and how long I’ve had the pain, sex and stuff like that.”

Harry pulls a face that Louis imagines looks a lot like the one she is pulling herself. “Sex? God, how embarrassing. Why?”

“Yeah, and my mum was there too! I dunno, asked if it… y’know. Made me bleed.”

Harry looks aghast. “Does it?”

“No, you tit! I think he meant, y’know, meat sticks. Pork wands. Obviously I told him that was non-applicable.” Louis smiles, and Harry throws back her head and giggles, covering her face with her hands. “Anyway, it was mortifying and I wish I was dead now.” 

Louis pauses to break off a chunk of her scone and proceeds to dunk it in her tea. Harry barely registers the quirk now; that’s progress. 

“At least you’ve been; I half expected you to flat out refuse.”

“I would have if it wasn’t for my mum marching me in there, I think.” Louis admits.

They finish their food and then get waylaid by the counter talking to an older lady that recognises Louis from her shift. Louis’ aware of Harry hovering awkwardly over her shoulder as she tries to get away from Irene or Valerie or whatever her name is. It’s Val, definitely.

“Well, I’ll let you girls get on!” She exclaims finally, like Louis hadn't been trying to inch away from her for the past minute and a half. “I’m sure you girls have got more interesting things to be doing than talking to a mad old girl like me!”

Now Louis feels guilty. “Ah no Val, I love talking to you! You’ll be ‘round tomorrow for a cuppa and a slice of cake, yeah?”

Val laughs, patting Louis’ arm and giving Harry a polite smile. “Go and have fun girls. Look after each other.”

“Ah, she was so sweet,” Harry muses when the door closes behind them and they make their way out into the cold. “She reminds me of what you’ll look like in fifty years. Assuming you keep getting shorter, not taller.”

“Hey, I’m not that short!” Louis objects. “You’re just freakishly tall for a girl, that’s what it is.”

“Have you thought any more about coming to the uni open day?” Harry asks her immediately afterwards, and it catches Louis unawares for a moment. “In Manchester.”

Louis’ heart sinks; she’d enjoyed a few hours of  _ not _ thinking about that. Harry had first mentioned it to her after the last open day she went to way back in June. Half-heartedly, and because December felt like such a  long way away then, Louis had agreed and together they’d registered for the next open day, Harry with her photography and graphic design interests in mind and Louis with her diluted interest being their media studies programme.

“It’s just for a look around,” Harry adds on quickly, obviously sensing Louis’ unease. “I don't even know if I’m set on it yet, so like, there’s no pressure. Just wondering. I’d like it if you were there, babe.”

“Who’s going?”

“Me and mum… Niall too, but like, not with us. She’s going on the Saturday I think but mum’s booked us- me, on for the Sunday, so you could come too and you won’t miss work. Your mum can come too, if your brothers are going to be with Mark.”

“When is it again?” Louis asks weakly.

“Next weekend; the eighteenth, I think it is. So… you wanna come?”

Louis asks Harry a million more questions, searching for a loophole, but Harry never comes up blank. With a sigh, just a few feet from Harry’s front door, Louis finally agrees to go along with Harry.

♀♀

Sure enough, on Saturday afternoon Louis spots Val through the glass panel in the shop door, shuffling up the street with her reusable canvas bag full of library books, as always. 

Louis darts around the counter and holds the door open for her as she reaches for the handle. 

“Hello again, sweetheart,” Val smiles brightly as she registers. “Thank you, lovey.”

“Hiya Val, the usual yeah?” Louis asks as she heads back to her side of the counter. Val smiles and nods with a wink. “Ooh, actually, we’ve got lemon drizzle for the special today, fancy a slice of that?”

Val looks to where Louis is pointing out the four remaining slices of lemon drizzle cake and grins. “Oh go on then, you’ve twisted my arm!”

By the time she’s served Val, refilled the coffee machines and replaced the receipt roll in the till it’s time for her lunch break. After that, the afternoon crawls by but eventually it’s six o’clock and home time. Of course, it’s coming down in sheets outside the windows, which are all fogged up.

“I’ll give you a lift home, Louis, it’s teeming down out there.” Lisa from the kitchen offers, and so Louis doesn’t have to get drenched walking home in it. On the downside, all she talks about is university and exams. 

“My Leigh is really bricking it, I think, but her predicted grades are on course,” Lisa tells her. “She’s applying to Liverpool to study dance and performing arts.”

Louis’ heart plummets at the topic of conversation. Lisa’s daughter Leigh-Anne is Perrie’s friend and is in Louis’ media studies class. She’s also a keen dancer and Louis’ heard all about it over the year that they’ve worked together. Doing her best to keep up her game face, she takes a deep breath and even manages a weak but semi-convincing smile.

“I uh, I’m going to Manchester, I think,” Louis lies. “Results dependent, of course.”

Lisa grins. “Aw, you’ll be fine! I bet your mum’s so proud!”

And… shit. That hits Louis like a tonne of bricks. She hadn’t stopped to consider that at all. She doesn’t manage an answer, and Lisa changes the subject. 

Louis is just grateful it’s only a short journey and there is the sound of the rain falling and the windscreen wipers to fill the awkward silence, because without it she’s sure Lisa would be able to hear the sound of her heart breaking.

Luckily one of the boys is kicking off about something so Louis manages to weakly announce her safe arrival home, make a cuppa and sneak off to her room without being questioned. She’s still in her work clothes come eight o’clock, having not moved an inch from her bed except to take her pen out of her pocket that was stabbing her in the thigh. 

“Lou, do you want tea babes?” Jay pokes her head round the corner once the twins are in bed. “I kept a plate warm for you in the oven, love.”

“What is it?” Louis asks. It smells like pasta bake. 

“Pasta bake,” Jay says, and that rouses a smile from Louis. “C’mon, sweetheart, come down and sit wi’ me. I kept you back three slices of garlic bread.”

♀♀

Sunday is a washout, metaphorically and physically. It rains all day and all evening, finally letting up at about ten pm. Louis doesn’t even get out of her pyjamas. The sheer mass of the all-important last week of term casts a cool dark shadow over her and the undeniable pressure of the things expected of her over the next few weeks is like a lead weight. 

Monday morning comes and the last week of term begins just like any other. Louis dashes out of the house with a healthy breakfast of Jaffa cakes in hand and finds Niall and Liam along the street, joining them just as their conversation switches very abruptly to Christmas.

Louis would ordinarily harp on about her birthday and how much of a cop out it is for everyone, just getting her one ‘big present’ and politely excusing the fact that it’s in Christmas paper, but something inside holds her back and she just nods along, listening to what they’re saying.

“You’re quiet, Lou,” Liam notices. Bless her. “What’s up?

Louis shrugs, putting forward her best acting skills. “Well, Christmas is for kids isn’t it? I’ll be eighteen this Christmas, a fully-fledged adult. What’s to be excited about? It’s all downhill from here, girls!”

Niall chuckles loudly and Liam is more reserved but she does muster up a smile. “You’ll be drawing your pension and getting a blue rinse next.”

“Don’t give her ideas!”

♀♀

Things get better for a few days; Harry lays off all talk of university visits and Louis only has to deal with exam talk from teachers. On their free afternoon Wednesday the five of them get hot chocolates from town and then giggle obnoxiously as Niall slopes off to her driving lesson.

♀♀

“ Lou, can I have a quick word a minute?” Miss Allbright calls as Louis is gathering her bags on Thursday morning. Miss Allbright is the only teacher, thank God, that calls her Lou and it’s never stopped being weird. Louis looks up, confused because this never happens.

“Umm, yeah,” She murmurs quizzically. “What have I done?”

Miss Allbright smiles softly. “Lou, how are you coping at the moment?”

Louis stares back at her. “Fine.” she lies. 

“I understand how stressful this time in life can be. There are so many options available that it can just sort of… blow your mind.”

Louis nods because she doesn't know what else to do, and it’s not like Miss Allbright is wrong, really.

“I just wanted to remind you of the help that’s available to you here; the head of sixth and the careers adviser, and me of course. If you need help with anything, okay, please speak up. When you come back in January things are going to move up a gear, honestly.”

Louis just nods. She doesn't want to think about that, at all. “What, uh- thanks. Who- has someone said something?” Louis asks. Her mind goes first to Liam and then Harry.

“No,” Miss Allbright blatantly lies. “Promise me you’ll speak to someone if you need to, Lou?”

Louis rolls her eyes heavenwards, she doesn’t mean to. “Sorry- yeah. I will.”

“Especially with your uni choices. I know sometimes it seems daunting, moving onto something bigger and scarier than what you’re used to, but with the right support you’ll be fine. Have you given it any thought at all?”

Louis laughs internally. It’s all she’s been thinking about, she just hasn't drawn any solid conclusions yet. “Yeah, I uh, well I registered with UCAS. I… I’ve just been focussing on my A-Levels more, I guess? Me and Harry are going to the Manchester open day at the weekend, though.”

“Okay, well that’s a very good start,” Miss Allbright says encouragingly. Louis nods. “Look, we don’t have much time now, but if you need to talk at all please, again, remember the support network we have here at the school.”

“Yeah, I will.” Louis says, just to dismiss herself more than because she actually will.

“Fab. Off you go, then!”

“Cheers miss.” Louis rushes out of the classroom as quickly as she can, fighting her way through crowds of Miss Allbright’s year nine first period English class. 

♀♀

“Where were you?” Niall demands as Louis appears in business studies just one second ahead of Mr Maguire.

She shakes her head as she sits down. “Nothing, just Miss Allbright going on about exams and shit.”

Niall just nods disinterestedly but Liam has the decency to show a bit more concern. “Why, are you struggling?”

“No, ‘course I’m not!” Louis hisses, feeling a tinge of embarrassment. “It’s probably ‘cause I haven’t made my uni choices yet.”

“How would she know that?”

This question puzzles Louis. “Look, I dunno do I? Just drop it.”

“Quiet down girls!” Mr Maguire interrupts them, thankfully, and Louis is let off the hook.

Mr Maguire is very intense about his subject, and there’s little opportunity to talk while they listen, but Louis’ grateful for that for once. She doesn’t feel like spilling her innermost thoughts right now; she’s done enough of that to last her a lifetime and it’s not even been that much.

“So!” Mr Maguire booms as he rounds off the lesson, thirty seconds or so before the bell. “The start of next term marks the countdown to your coursework deadlines! Don’t use the Christmas holidays as an excuse to fall behind!”

Louis looks around at all the blank faces that surround her; she wonders if under the surface they’re panicking as much as she is. Then, the loud shrill of the bell interrupts her thoughts and she rises to her feet with the rest of the room.

“Hi babe,” Harry smiles as they bump into each other in the corridor coming out of their respective classrooms. “Everything okay?”

Louis doesn’t feel like getting into anything, so she just smiles. “Yeah, fine. How was photography?”

Harry’s eyes light up. “Good, yeah. My portfolio is pretty much up to date, just working on my essays and my conclusion now.”

“So you’re ahead of schedule?” Louis verifies. She knows Harry’s photography deadline, she’s heard about it a million times since it was set to her. “Nice. Can you do my business studies coursework for me too, then?”

Harry giggles softly. “Yeah, I’ll do it in my free time, hey?”

“Thanks,” Louis smiles weakly. Zayn appears then and the five of them head off to double English before lunch.

♀♀

On Friday, the last day of term, all talk is surrounding Louis and her upcoming eighteenth birthday. Having a birthday that falls on Christmas Eve is never convenient, but she just has to roll with it. It was worse when she was younger and the boys’ excitement for Christmas overshadowed her joy. 

She meets Niall and Liam as always on the walk to school, and is pleasantly surprised to find Zayn with them. She knows Harry is getting a lift in this morning as she’s got loads of stuff to take in for graphic design. 

“All right, almost Birthday Girl?” Niall greets her with a little salute. “What’s cracking?”

“Nothing,” Louis answers gloomily. “None of yous lot are old enough to come to town with me, so…”

“What’s Harry got planned?” Liam asks next.

“Not a clue,” Louis says with a shrug.

“Probably something disgustingly romantic and soppy.”

Louis agrees, though, is the thing. For her first birthday with Harry, Harry had made her a birthday card and a scrapbook decorated with dried rose petals chronicling their seven month old relationship so far. 

“Not my fault your straight arse wouldn’t know romance if it jumped up and smacked you.”

Louis’ sure the other three exchange a look between them but the moment passes so quickly that she doesn’t get a chance to question them on it before everyone’s moved on.

“Well, your actual birthday is a no-go, obviously, what about the day before?”

“Yeah, works for me.” Zayn agrees, but Liam brings her hand up to her face and chews on her sleeve where it’s pulled over her fingers.

“I can’t do Friday,” She murmurs from behind her hand. “What about Thursday?”

“Well, whatever I guess,” Louis shrugs. “What are we doing?”

They go back and forth on ideas on what to do, eventually agreeing they’ll decide once Harry’s there to make an executive decision for them. They get to their tutor room just in time for the bell ringing, and Harry is already there, sitting daydreaming dozily with her hair tied up in a bright fuchsia scrunchie. 

Harry smiles as the four of them traipse into the classroom, her eyes lingering on Louis for a beat longer than the others. 

“Morning everyone!” Miss Allbright greets them, taking her place at the front of the classroom. “The last day of term is upon us! Try to remember that today is still a normal day, despite how festive you might feel!”

Louis scoffs; she doesn’t feel festive at all. She’s seen the Coca-Cola ad on the telly, the music channels play nothing but Mariah Carey and the boys helped mum to put up the Christmas tree at the beginning of the month, but nothing is helping her get into the festive spirit.

“Most importantly of all, have a fantastic Christmas and New Year and come back fresh in the new year ready to knuckle down and get those exams smashed!”

Louis admires her enthusiasm, she really does. 

Media studies is just watching three episodes of How I Met Your Mother, which suits Louis down to the ground. After break, double English is pretty much a write-off; Miss Duncan doesn’t even set them a task, just gets them to brainstorm pointers for their English Language exam. She provides them all with sheets of A3 paper and marker pens and then pretty much loses interest immediately after. Harry and Zayn do get down a pretty impressive sketch of Shakespeare wearing a snapback and a gold chain, though.

The thing is, though, the lack of structure stresses Louis out. No one around her seems to be bothered, including the four girls closest to her. The opportunity to break off into self-assigned groups and work on something menial and insignificant should be jumped at, but Louis can feel her fingers itching to get hold of her textbook and actually revise something.

“C’mon, stop pretending to be a geek and join in,” Niall says across the table. Louis looks up, feeling suffocated for a moment as she tries to focus on her friend; long blonde hair with highlights growing out now, roots darker, blue eyes and not a single trace of makeup.

“What are we doing?” She asks weakly, looking to Liam for support.

♀♀

When the hell that is double English is finally over, all Louis has to get through is lunch and a double study period and then that’s it for nineteen whole days. The next time she’s here she’ll be nineteen days closer to having to make all the decisions she’s been putting off for months.

They sit in the cafeteria for as long as they can, long after they’ve finished eating. Louis picks at the label on her bottle of Oasis, listening to the low hum of noise in the room, snippets of what her friends are talking about interspersed within.

The dinner lady that is wiping down empty tables loiters near them, hovering with her spray bottle poised. With heavy sighs they slowly stand up and gather their bags, dropping their empty chip pots and cans into the bin and going outside as there’s precious little else to do. 

Thankfully it’s remained dry today and there’s a bench free opposite the netball pitch, so they head straight to it. There’s room for three of them to sit comfortably, four at a push, and with Louis perching herself on Harry’s lap the five of them squeeze on together. It’s short lived though. Niall gives up, muttering to herself as she situates herself on the concrete. Zayn and Liam shuffle up a bit and Louis moves to perch on the arm of the bench; it’s thoroughly uncomfortable but she’s moved once, she’s not moving again because the only other option is the floor next to Niall.

“So girls, are we decided on what we’re doing for yours truly’s big day?”

“Are we definitely doing Thursday?” Zayn asks. “Harry does that suit your plans?”

“Yeah H, are we gonna interfere with your undoubtedly ridiculously mushy plans if we do summat Thursday?” Niall asks, peering up from her vantage point on the floor with a devilish twinkle in her eyes. 

“No, no, that’s Friday.”

“Oh that’s good. This mug can’t do Friday anyway,  _ something _ or  _ someone _ is more important than me!” Louis says, jerking a thumb over in Liam’s direction.

Then, something happens and Louis can’t ignore it any longer. The four of them -  _ yes, _ all four of them – exchange a look and it’s like something in Louis, the elastic band that was keeping all of her patience at bay, suddenly snaps.

“Look, whatever the fuck you lot are gossiping about behind my back is getting annoying now!” She exclaims, looking down at Niall and then back up and Liam and Zayn. She’s aware of Harry in her periphery but she’s more focussed on the other two; Liam is squirming while Zayn stares at her solidly.

“Tell her, Payno.” Zayn says softly, encouragingly.

“Tell me what?!” Louis shrieks indignantly.

“You might as well tell her, Li, you’ll feel better.” Harry says, and Louis turns to look at her. She’s leaning forward, looking round Zayn to Liam.

“Look, you lot, this isn’t funny!” Louis says again; she can hear how shrill and unstable her voice sounds; it’s so unfamiliar. She’s greeted with silence though.

“Liam!” Niall hisses eventually.

“Okay!” Liam sighs, throwing her hands up into the air. “Lou, I can’t do Friday ‘cause I… I’m going out.”

“With who?” Louis demands.

“My… my boyfriend.”

Louis… wasn’t expecting that. Full of confusion she pulls a face at Liam, waiting for the other shoe to drop. “What? Is that it? What do you- why was that a big secret?”

Liam shrugs and looks to any of the others for support, to no avail.

“If that’s all it is why did no one tell me? Why do all of you lot seem to know but not me?” Louis demands, getting up off the arm of the bench. Her bum is damp.

“Just... y’know,” Liam mumbles _. No, _ Louis doesn’t know. “You’re always moaning about ‘straight people’ and calling everything homophobic and I just… I didn’t think you’d wanna know. Didn’t think you’d care.”

_ Oh. _ And there it is. There goes the other shoe Louis was waiting for. Her face falls, along with her heart, and she immediately feels sick to her stomach.

“What?” She stammers, her throat feeling thick. “Why would you say that? Who even is it, do we know him?”

“It’s uh, it’s Ed?”

A small laugh escapes from Louis before she can stop it because she’s so surprised by the revelation that she doesn't know how to react.

“Ed?” She asks, looking from Liam to Niall and Zayn and then Harry then back at Liam. “As in Sheeran? Gingernut? From media studies?”

Liam nods. “At first I didn’t say anything ‘cause I didn't know if he actually liked me like that, and then I was worried that he’d end up dumping me after two days anyway.”

“Those two knew,” Louis states, trying to get the facts straight in her brain more than anything. “What about you, Haz? How long did you know before today?” 

“I only found out the other day ‘cause Niall let it slip accidentally,” Harry says, still clutching her windswept curls. 

“Oh my God, I don’t get it! Why did no one tell me? Am I really that bad, that  _ fucking _ horrible-”

“No, Louis, that’s  _ not _ it!” Liam yells desperately. “I’m really sorry!”

“I’m sorry too, Lou,” Harry says. “I only didn’t tell you ‘cause Liam made me promise.”

That hurts. Louis feels all the fight leave her body. She shrugs and her gaze drops to the ground. “It’s… it’s fine. I just, I just- I’m gonna go home.”

“Lou, please-”

“It’s fine, Harry, I mean it. I just want to go home. I’m tired and it’s only study period. I’m not missing anything.”

Harry stares back at her, looking desperate. Liam falls into place by her side. “Tommo, I’m sorry I upset you.”

“You didn’t. It’s not you lot, it’s- it’s me,” Louis whispers inaudibly, backing away, too unfocussed to even recognise the clichéd statement.

“Lou, wait!” Harry calls as both Liam and Niall call out her name too. She turns back, and Harry is on her feet, dashing towards her, the wind blowing her hair into her eyes. Liam is close behind, looking close to tears.

Louis turns her back and walks against the wind. She doesn’t look back to see if Harry stays put, if she watches her walk away, if she returns to the other girls and makes a remark or pulls a face. All she knows is that Harry doesn’t follow her, and in that moment, she’s actually relieved.

She’s glad no one can see the tears streaming down her cheeks, glad no one is there to hear the hiccupping great sobs that wrench through her body when she arrives home – inexplicably an hour and a half early – into the arms of her mum.

“Lou, what’re you- oh, sweetheart what’s happened?” Jay leaps to her feet and catches Louis as she staggers forward, collapsing against the warm comfort of her mum.

“It’s all gone wrong, mum!” She exclaims, dampening Jay’s shoulder with tears and snot and spit. “I’ve messed up my exams and uni and- and all my friends hate me! It’s all happening too fast, too much, mum. I can’t- I can’t cope with everything that’s changing.”

“Oh sweetheart, come on it’s okay. Sit down.” 

Louis allows herself to be blindly guided by her mum, feeling the backs of her legs hit a dining room chair. She sinks down into it and Jay crouches down at her level. She takes Louis’ hands in hers and grips them securely.

“Breathe, love, breathe through it. It’s not as bad as you think, just breathe.”

“I’ve not known what to think, I thought they were planning something for my birthday but then I asked them and they’d blatantly forgotten all about it! Then I- I just didn’t know what to think, mum. I thought maybe Harry was cheating on me and they all knew about it!”

Louis is hyperventilating, using all of her laboured breaths on getting her words out, and she’s starting to feel light headed.

“Louis, love, she’d never, would she?”

Louis shakes her head. “I don’t think so. Anyway, it wasn’t that. It’s Liam. She’s got herself a boyfriend and no-one told me, everyone knew but me and…”

“Are you, uh- are you jealous of Liam’s boyfriend, love?”

“No mum!” Louis exclaims. “It’s not that, it’s the fact that I made her feel like she couldn’t tell me ‘cause of all the stupid times I’ve said things are homophobic or that I don’t care about straight people! I pushed my best mate away!”

“Oh love,” Jay sympathises. “I’m sure Liam knows that you don’t mean it personally.”

“I can’t do it mum, I can’t even keep my friends, how am I supposed to pick a uni course? I can’t, I just can’t!”

Louis is vaguely aware of the sound of her brothers charging downstairs to see what all the commotion is about. The door bursts open and the clattering becomes clearer.

“Mum? Is Louis okay?” One of the boys, Louis can’t tell which one, pipes up. 

“She’ll be fine, go and play in your room for a bit please love. I’m sorting Lou out.” Jay says calmly to him before turning her attention back to Louis. “Louis, breathe love, you’re okay. We’re in the kitchen, we’re fine. Deep breaths, sweetheart!”

Louis gulps on air, though it doesn’t make it to her lungs. Her chest feels tight like she’s being crushed in a vice and the breaths just won’t come.

“I can’t!” She repeats, feeling her palms go sweaty as all the blood drains from her face. “It’s, I can’t, it’s not working, I can’t do it, mum! It hurts and I can’t and… mum, help!”

“Listen to me, deep breaths!” Jay says clearly; the words barely registering with Louis. She continues to panic, unable to take proper breaths. “Louis, breathing properly please; in out, in out.”

It feels like a lifetime before Louis zones back in and she’s able to concentrate on anything. She picks something out, the feel of the carpet beneath her feet, to focus on and channels all of her attention into that. Gradually she realises she’s stabilised her breathing by herself. She hiccups through the tears, their tracks slowly drying on her face. 

“There we are,” Her mum says soothingly. “You’re back. You’re okay, baby girl.”

“Mum-” Louis tries and fails to put anything into words; her bottom lip wobbles and a fresh, smaller batch of tears shed from her sore eyes.

“Come on,” Jay says, getting to her feet and coaxing Louis up too. “I’m gonna run you a bath and then you’re gonna get into bed and we’ll cuddle, okay?”

“But the boys-”

“Can entertain themselves.” Jay says, and that’s that.

Louis follows her mum upstairs and sits on the downturned toilet seat as she throws more than enough lavender Radox into the bath. Louis lifts one leg up, brings her knee up under her chin and watches the bubbly water level slowly rise. The dull ache is back low in her tummy and sitting like this takes the edge off somewhat.

“There you go,” Jay says, turning the taps off once the bath is full. “Get in that and relax. Calm down and wipe those tears away. Take your time, okay? I’ll make sure the boys don’t bother you.”

“Thanks mum,” Louis says, smiling morosely as she stands up.

♀♀

The tears roll silently down Louis’ cheeks and into her bath water, mixing with the bubbles and then disappearing. The only evidence is the moisture that glistens on her face. With a sigh she rolls over onto her front, props herself up on her elbows and lets her body float an inch or so off the bottom of the ceramic. The relief on her tummy and back is immense; completely submerged in the warm water and feeling weightless. The relief makes more tears slip out.

When the water has turned lukewarm she gets out, wrapping herself up in a towel and then her dressing gown. She throws herself down on top of her bed and sobs silently into her duvet cover.

A little while later, a soft hand on her shoulder makes her jump. She looks up blearily from her sodden pillow to see her mum peering in at her. She curls up on the bed next to Louis, taking her hand and pressing a kiss to her knuckle.

“Don’t cry my little Loubear,” She soothes. “I don’t like to see you upset.”

“Sorry,” Louis mumbles feebly, unable to stop crying.

“You ready to tell me all about it?” Jay asks.

Louis takes a deep breath, daunted at the prospect of standing at the bottom of the pile of her problems and trying to work her way through them to the top. It takes almost an hour, lots of crying, lots of hugs and a pause where Jay went to make them both a cuppa, but Louis gets through most of it. Turns out it was her mum that had contacted Miss Allbright to let her know that things weren’t as well as they could be, and after her initial anger has turned to humiliation, Louis eventually calms down.

“I’m phoning your work,” Jay says strictly. “There’s no way you’re going in tomorrow.”

“Mum, no!” Louis protests, but she holds her hand up.

“I will make up the money you miss out on in wages,” Jay carries on determinedly. “You need to get better, Lou. You’re overwrought with stress and emotions at the moment, you need some time out.”

“I’ve got the entire Christmas holidays for that.” Louis points out.

“I don’t care. I’m your mother, my decision is final.”

♀♀

Louis’ tea is kept warm on a plate in the oven and she eats about an hour after her brothers. They’re all tucked away in the living room or in their bedrooms, playing on their Xbox or whatever it is they do. Louis sits at the table staring at the messages that have come through while she’s been away.

**Nialler:** _ Hope ur okay. Let me no xx _

**Liammm:** _ Tommo answer your phone _

(4 missed calls from: Liammm)

**Zaynie:** _ Come back lou were sorry x _

**Liammm:** _ Tommo please xxx _

♥ **H:** _I love you so much my beautiful little darling. Text me as soon as you can so I know you’re okay xo_

The messages are overwhelming and Louis feels the panic start to rise in her chest again but she swallows hard against it, not letting it get any higher. Her heart swoops at Harry’s message, she can’t help it, but it’s Liam’s text that she goes to first.

_ ‘Payno im so sorry I messed up. If u still wanna talk to me I wanna know all the gossip. Love you xxx’ _

**Liammm:** _ Come over whenever tommo. Love u too xxx _

♀♀

It’s been a good while since Louis’ been to Liam’s house, and when she knocks on the door it’s quiet for a moment before Liam’s mum Karen appears at the door. 

“Oh hello Louis love,” she smiles warmly. “Liam said you were on your way over.”

“I won’t stay too late,” Louis says as Karen lets her in.

“Oh nonsense!” Karen chuckles. “How’s things? How are all those brothers of yours?”

Louis smiles politely. That’s all anyone ever asks her about if she hasn’t seen them for a while. Still, it’s better than how’s the lesbianism, which thankfully has become less and less frequent in recent times. 

“Yeah, everyone’s good thanks, Kazza,” Louis answers with a grin and a shoulder wiggle. “Is Liam in her room?”

“I’m here,” Liam answers before Karen can, appearing on the stairs as if by magic. “Honestly Lou, ‘Kazza’?” 

They both grin at each other and Liam turns back around and heads straight back upstairs, Louis following with a little wave to Karen.

Once they’re in the privacy of Liam’s room, Louis drops the ‘normal’ act and goes straight in for a hug. “I’m sorry, Payno,” she mumbles into Liam’s honey coloured hair. “I’m only joking when I say those things, y’know? Well, they’re not a joke, I’m serious, but I don’t mean them to include you, Payno - any of you!”

“Lou, honestly, it’s fine, I’m not- it’s fine. I’m sorry, too. I feel like a shit best friend.”

“Me too!” Louis laughs wetly. “I’m really sorry that I made you feel like you couldn’t tell me.”

There’s a sharpness in Louis’ chest, cold and still slightly impeding her breathing as she remembers the events of earlier that day. She’s honestly exhausted, both physically and mentally. Maybe her mum was right in saying she couldn’t go to work tomorrow?

“I know Hazza’s really cut up about keepin’ it a secret from you,” Liam says seriously. “It was literally only since Wednesday, I swear.”

“It’s okay; she was just being a mate, wasn’t she. It’s fine. I’ll tell her it’s fine.”

“I’m sorry again, Lou, I… I feel stupid now, for being worried.”

“Li, that stuff I say, it’s like, it’s like a defence mechanism. I even say it to my mum. I never meant for it to upset you, or any of you lot. You’re my best mate!” 

“Really?” Liam asks, and she looks genuinely 

“Course you are!” Louis exclaims, wrapping her arm back around Liam’s shoulders and squeezing. “Assuming you still wanna be friends with a rubbish, overemotional, socially stunted lesbian like me?”

Liam chuckles. “You forgot exceptionally short.”

“Hey!”

“But pretty awesome anyway.” Liam tacks on the end.

“That’s more like it!” Louis huffs, releasing Liam and folding her arms across her body.

“Do you wanna drink?” Liam asks, shuffling to the edge of the bed. “Dr Pepper was two for three quid in the Co-Op so my mum bought some.”

“Ah, Dr Pepper, the official drink of lesbians,” Louis smiles. “And their straight besties.”

Liam rolls her eyes with a soft chuckle. “Wait here. Be right back.”

Louis takes a deep breath, her nerves settling as she sits there watching Liam’s little telly. She returns with two glasses full of dark liquid and Liam settles back down next to her.

After a little while, Louis leans over to put her empty glass down and then smacks Liam’s thigh.

“So! Ed! That’s so bizarre! I would never have seen that one coming in a million years! He is funny though, I guess I sorta get it.”

Liam giggles, her cheeks pink with embarrassment. “I don’t really know how it happened, I just… I never realised how funny he was until last year, in biology.”

“So you’ve fancied him for a  _ whole _ year?”

Liam makes a high whine in the back of her throat. “Yeah, I… oh God I suppose so, yeah.”

“Aw Payno! Pining Payno, that’s so cute. I can’t wait to tease him-” Liam’s face falls. “Tease him that I know, I mean. Not because going out with you isn’t nice, I bet it is. I’d go out with you if I wasn't going out with Harry. And if you weren’t straight, y’know what I mean-”

“Lou, shut up!” Liam interrupts, laughing widely. “Yes, I know what you mean!”

Louis stays until about eight and then Karen drives her home. Liam is the same around her parents as she is at school; sensible and astute and well-behaved. She sits in the front seat calmly with the radio turned down low. The conversation flits around the three of them nicely, the rain pattering persistently on the window pane. Louis relaxes as she watches the steady wave of Karen’s windscreen wipers.

“So I’ll see you Thursday if I don’t see you before?” Louis says as Karen pulls up outside her house. “Thanks for the lift, Kazza.”

Karen smiles fondly, giggling while Liam tuts. “Yeah, see you later Tommo. Text me later, okay?”

Louis jumps out of the car, slamming the door behind her and dashing up the path to her front door, key poised. The twins are in their pyjamas in the living room, fighting over whether to spend their last hour before bed playing Fifa or Lego Marvel Superheroes, while the older two are nowhere to be seen, presumably in their rooms. 

Louis heads through the living room to the kitchen, finding her mum sitting at the tea table reading her Kindle.

“Hey love,” Jay looks up, the white light from the screen casting shadows over her face. “All made up with Liam?”

Louis nods gratefully, smiling as her mum pulls her into a tight cuddle. “Good, I’m glad to hear it. Tell you what, the boys’ are going to your dads’ tomorrow and we’re gonna have a girly day. How does the cinema and Pizza Hut sound?”

“Is that my early birthday treat?” Louis asks.

“Of course not you doughnut!” Jay exclaims, squeezing Louis’ shoulders as she releases her. “It’s just because I want to and I can. You deserve it, babe. Now, are you still hungry? I saw you barely touched your tea earlier. I can make you a cheese toastie or summat? Soup and a breadcake?”

Louis realises then how hungry she is and how good a cheese toastie sounds. “With loads ketchup please?”

♀♀

Sure enough, when Louis wakes up on Saturday morning it’s almost eleven thirty and she notices two things; a distinct lack of brotherly type noises, and the smell of bacon frying.

“Ah, perfect timing!” Jay beams, still in her dressing gown and a towel around her wet hair. “Breakfast is served, m’lady.”

Louis grins as she sits down to bacon, scrambled egg, triangles of toast and lashings of tomato sauce.

“Eat up, I’m going to go and dry my hair and then you can jump in the shower and then we’ll head off. I’ve left the cinema listings on the tablet, check ‘em out and pick something to watch.”

Louis chooses a chick flick that starts at three; by the time they’re both ready and get out of the house, stop off at the shops to pick up some illicit treats and find a parking space at the cinema, they’re just in time for the previews.

The film is good and full of some real belly laugh moments; for a couple of hours Louis forgets the things that are going on in real life and just gets lost in the epic love story playing out on the big screen, even if she does wish it could be two girls or two boys, just for a change.

It’s dark when they get out of the cinema, even though it feels like for two and a bit hours’ time outside of the darkened room just stood still. They dash to the car and drive around to Pizza Hut. They only have to wait five minutes or so for a table, which is good considering it’s prime time for families. 

Their little two seater table is in a quiet corner near the salad bar, and they chatter back and forth almost non-stop, pausing only to sip their bottomless Cokes and eventually tuck into their pizzas. It’s very therapeutic going over everything with her mum; having this one on one time with her is a welcome change from having to share her with those horrible boys.

But by the next morning, Louis’ nerves are thrumming through her body as she sits perched on the edge of the sofa waiting for Anne’s car to pull up out the front. Harry had text her precisely eight minutes ago, not that Louis’ counting, saying they were on their way and every second has felt like an eternity since. Every minute that Louis sits there her anxiety and nerves grow until she can’t tell what she’s more nervous for; the university visit or seeing Harry again.

They haven’t seen each other since the incident at school on Friday. They’ve texted and Harry has sent her a silly-faced selfie with her brother in the background flipping them off, but this will be the first time face to face. It’s only been two days, but it feels like a lifetime. Louis knows from Liam that Harry is feeling guilty, and it makes Louis feel uneasy at the prospect of meeting her; something she hasn’t felt since the first time almost two and a half years ago when she realised she might like Harry more than just in a friendly way. 

“C’mon, Lou, they’re here.” Jay interrupts her thoughts. Louis jumps up, zoning back in.

Anne and Jay get on like a house on fire, having been acquaintances then quickly firm friends since Harry came to Louis’ primary school in year four.

Louis and Harry sit in the back seat, hands joined casually across the middle seat as their mums laugh and joke and share butter mintoes as the radio plays.

“They’re enjoying this more than we are,” Louis remarks with a smirk, gripping Harry’s hand in hers a bit tighter for a beat. They haven’t had a chance to talk yet, obviously, but Harry’s greeting was by way of a large smile and she immediately reached out to hold Louis’ hand first when they set off, so Louis is reassured by that. 

The journey doesn’t take too long; about forty minutes without traffic to contend with. It feels like forty minutes too soon for Louis though, she’s not ready for this. The campus is overwhelmingly large and even just finding a space in the designated parking is daunting. 

Louis’ palms are sweaty as she apologetically pulls away from Harry. Anne has parked and their mums are already clambering out of the car, going on about where to go and asking if they’re excited. 

Getting out of the car and following the paper signs taped up along the route towards the main entrance is like an out of body experience for Louis. It’s hectic, people everywhere and her anxiety is creeping up. Harry is prancing on ahead, her stupid hair bobbing about as she moves and it’s irritating Louis. She knows that’s unfair but she can’t explain her reasoning behind anything right now.

Jay keeps close by her side, taking her hand and squeezing it tightly, not letting go as they walk alongside Anne. 

“Are you all right, Louis?” Anne asks, looking concerned. She looks over at Harry bounding on ahead and shakes her head. “She’s not much use today, is she?”

“She’s excited,” Jay says with a soft smile. Louis just shrugs.

“It’s okay,” Louis replies, looking ahead vacantly. “I don’t want her to feel like I’m holding her back.”

♀♀

It’s getting on for lunchtime by the time Louis’ nerves settle. So far they’ve stood in lots of queues, been given lots of leaflets and flyers, and spoken to lots of overzealous, sickeningly enthusiastic people that make Louis want to die.

“Seems good, doesn’t it?” Jay asks enthusiastically as they finally walk away from the accommodation and student finance stand. Louis’ got information about the halls of residence for the university clutched in her sweaty palm and listened to over ten minutes of waffle, nodding in all the right places but she didn’t take anything in.

“Yeah, probably.” Louis says, and Jay tilts her head to the side, frowning with disappointment. Feeling guilty, Louis tries a fake smile. “I mean, it’s a lot to take in isn’t it? I will re-read these later.”

They’ve lost Harry and Anne somewhere in the hubbub of the heaving room. The vague plan is to break for something to eat and then reconvene to go off separately in the afternoon, Harry to her photography information session with Anne and Louis to their media studies talk.

Louis pulls out her phone and sends Harry a quick message, taking the opportunity to turn her data on and update herself on social media, but even there nothing’s happening.

♥ **H:** _ Looking at a few socs. Mum said meet you two for lunch at 12.30? xo _

“They’re looking at something. Said to meet them at half twelve for lunch.” Louis informs her mum disinterestedly. Jay murmurs something and Louis slips her phone back in her jacket pocket. It’s twenty past now so at least they don’t have long to wait.

“Is there anything else that catches your eye, love?” Jay asks, and Louis looks around, scanning the room and trying to make out anything that isn't just throngs of people everywhere. 

She shakes her head resignedly. “No, let’s just go and get in the queue. I’m dying for a drink.”

“Okay, babe.”

As they’re idling their way through the crowds, a stand with rainbow coloured bees catches Louis’ eye, and as she surreptitiously grabs a leaflet for the LGBTQ society a blonde haired girl with a kind smile catches her eye. Louis feels both guilt and shame as she tries to be as discreet as possible in picking up one of the LGBTQ society’s flyers. She stuffs it in and amongst all of the others and hurries past with a small, apologetic, red faced smile at the nice girl.

“All right, love?” Jay asks as Louis catches up to her, clinging to her arm. “Come on, let’s go and find Anne and Harry.” 

♀♀

Harry is absolutely full of it when they find each other again. Louis doesn’t think she’s ever felt worse. She’s counting down the minutes until they can leave, and they haven’t even been to the course sessions yet.

“God, there’s so much here isn’t there, I can’t keep up! The photography society looks good doesn’t it mum? I think I’d definitely join that if I get a place here. God, can you imagine? I’d learn so much!”

Anne and Jay are both smiling at Harry warmly, chuckling around their little space of table as Harry babbles on. Bloody traitors, the lot of them.

“I got these for you Lou,” Harry says, brandishing a load of leaflets and an information pack for something called The Mancunion. “The photography soc fell under Media so I thought you’d be interested in these.”

“Th-thanks,” Louis stammers, taking the leaflets that Harry is thrusting under her nose. She skims over them quickly but the brightly coloured fonts and pictures of people looking happy don’t register at all.

“Well that’s good, I remember from my uni days, being part of a few societies is always fun. A great way to meet new people!” Anne says with such fake sounding enthusiasm it makes Louis want to burst out laughing.

“Did you see anything you might be interested in, Lou?” Jay asks, nudging her arm encouragingly.

Louis can feel the LGBTQ society leaflet burning a hole through all of the other paperwork piled up in front of her, but she’s suddenly not brave enough to say the words out loud, so she just shrugs.

“These look good,” She says instead, picking up the two or three leaflets on top of the pile that Harry had provided. “Thanks, Haz.”

“There are loads, _ really _ crazy ones!” Harry says, reciting from the list she’s got in front of her. “Belly dancing, cheese and wine, juggling and circus skills, ballroom dancing _ and _ a capella singing!”

“That’ll be one for you then, Harry!” Jay laughs.

“I like the sound of cheese and wine tasting, d’you reckon there’s an allowance for parents?” Anne says, and she and Jay grin at each other.

Harry rolls her eyes and Louis musters up a bemused smile.

♀♀

Louis fares a bit better in the afternoon, or maybe she’s just getting better at faking it, who knows? There’s an ‘informal talk’ hosted by one of the lecturers and two third year students, then a Q+A that Louis stays absolutely silent throughout.

Harry is decidedly more upbeat than Louis when they meet up again for the last time to head home. Harry slips her arm through Louis’ and pulls her along, chatting manically and asking a million questions that she doesn’t even give Louis time to try and answer. 

“The two people representing the photography soc were dead nice weren’t they mum. Sam and Ella, they were really nice.”

“Sam and Ella?” Louis repeats, stupefied that she’s the only one that has noticed the obvious hilarity in the duo’s names. “Sam and Ella. Sounds like salmonella.”

Harry just looks confused but she giggles anyway, waving a hand dismissively before launching into her next tirade. Louis listens dutifully, though thankfully Harry doesn’t rabbit on  _ all _ the way home. She gets the hint about twenty minutes in and the rest of the journey is as subdued as it was on the way to Manchester.

“Home sweet home!” Jay says weakly as Anne pulls up in front of their house some thirty minutes later. “Thanks for this, Annie, are you sure I can’t give you anything for the petrol?”

“No, no, of course not you silly mare!” Anne exclaims. “We were going anyway, it’s never any bother!”

“Ah, well thanks again,” They lean over the centre console to kiss each other’s cheeks goodbye. “See you soon!”

Harry scrambles out of the back at the same time as Louis, keen to sit in the front seat for the remaining few minutes of their journey. As Jay hugs Harry goodbye and goes to open the front door, Louis lingers behind.

“Thanks for coming with me, Lou-Lou,” Harry says. “Did you think it was nice there?”

Nice isn’t really the word Louis would use. “Yeah, it was… it was something else, that’s for sure.”

“It’s all a bit of a blur right now,” Harry continues. “I keep remembering things!”

“I’m glad you liked it, babe. So, I’ll see you Thursday?” Louis says, and Harry flinches slightly, obviously not expecting that. Quickly, Louis tacks on the end, “Maybe before, I dunno.”

“Al-all right, that’s fine,” Harry nods, reaching for the car door. “Bye, Lou-Lou.”

“Bye, Hazzy.” 

Louis feels awful as she walks away from Harry. The awkwardness of their fumbling exchange just then, the tumultuous experience at the university, the stress of the situation that hasn’t been resolved overnight nor did they get a chance to talk about; it all weighs heavy on her mind as she smiles bravely for her mum and takes the leaflets up to her room with the promise of going through them and trying to come to some conclusion.

Louis’ phone vibrates in her jacket pocket where she’d left it earlier on. She hauls herself out of bed, pads over to where she’s dropped it over the back of her desk chair and grabs the device from her pocket, along with a chewing gum wrapper and a receipt.

♥ **H:** _I love you xo_

♀♀

The first week of the holidays passes by well enough, and by the time Thursday comes Louis is actually quite excited for her day out with the girls. She isn’t without a dash of trepidation and anxiety though. She hasn’t seen Harry since Sunday, the longest they’ve gone without seeing each other for a long time. They have been speaking daily but it hasn’t been anything too heavy; the Liam incident and the uni visit and Louis’ ongoing war with herself are all blacklisted.  Harry seems to be falling over herself to shower Louis in compliments and throws around I love you’s like they’re going out of fashion, but for once Louis doesn’t let herself dwell on things.

They’re meeting at one o’clock in town and that’s as much as Louis knows. She’s been well and truly left in the dark during the planning stages of this last minute do, so when her mum drops her off by the bus station and she spots the four of them on the approach she feels her nerves turn to dread as she sees the ridiculous get up Niall has in her hands.

“I  _ said _ nothing embarrassing!” She yells in lieu of a hello as the four of them become five. 

Niall has a hot pink feather boa, a huge ‘birthday girl’ badge and fairy wings for Louis to wear. She stands out anyway, but particularly so against all of the festive reds and golds of the Christmas season. They go bowling first, donning the disgusting shoes and paying an absolute fortune for five Cokes. Louis self-appoints herself to enter their names onto the leader board; there is only room for three characters per player. Of course, Haz and Lou are easy but she has more fun with the other three. By the time she’s finished with the painstakingly slow machine, H-A-Z and L-O-U are joined by their three teammates, T-I-T, B-U-M and C-O-K.

“Which one am I?” Liam asks, staring up at the leader board in disgust.

“C-O-K’s Niall, you’re B-U-M and Zaynie babes, you’re T-I-T.”

After much bitching and whining from the girls, they begin their game. Liam is unsurprisingly very good, given her sporty and competitive nature, and Harry is unsurprisingly bad, given her uncoordinated and clumsy nature. Louis coasts along pretty unimpressively, bracketed between a slightly better Zayn and a slightly worse Niall.

Bowling is followed by food and then they present Louis with her present from the four of them. Liam hands it over, a narrow shallow box. It’s light and rattles slightly as it exchanges hands. Louis makes note of the fact it’s wrapped in purple paper with little holographic happy birthday’s all over.

She tears the paper off; definitely a Liam job that, and opens the box beneath. Inside is a sparkling infinity on a delicate silver chain. Louis touches her fingers to the cool metal and feels her heart rate pick up. Suddenly she’s close to tears.

“I chose it,” Liam says proudly, and Louis isn’t surprised at all. “It’s to show we’ll always be your friends, for infinity, even if we end up at different ends of the country we’ll always be best friends. The five of us.”

“Thank you,” She smiles shakily as she looks up at all their faces. “I- I love it, I really do.”

“Don’t set her off an’ all!” Niall exclaims as Harry sniffs and clutches at Louis’ arm. 

On the way back towards the bus station to wait for their respective parents to pick them up they get milkshakes that are so thick you have to scoop them into your mouth with the end of the straw. Louis fiddles with the infinity pendant around her neck as she walks, running it along the intricate bumps of the chain. Her heart feels all warm and fuzzy again after such a long, bleak time of feeling inferior. She hopes the feeling lasts.

Liam’s dad arrives first, then Niall’s mum, leaving Zayn, Harry and Louis. The two of them sit on the horrible red plastic benches of the bus station while Louis stands up, hands dug deep in her pockets as the cold wind whips around the barren space. The feathers on her boa tickle her chin.

“So! Liam’s big date tomorrow,” Zayn muses. “Bet she’s shitting it.”

Harry laughs and Louis smiles softly. “Still can’t believe I have to wait ‘til January to rib Ed about this.”

“Aw, leave the poor gingernut alone!” Harry says, still giggling.

“At least he’s getting some,” Zayn remarks. “Bless him.”

“Shut up, I don’t wanna think about Liam having sex!”

“Oh, so it’s okay when it’s you two?” Zayn splutters. “No one stops to consider  _ my _ ears when you two are having one of your sickeningly in love moments!”

“Well if you were having sex with Lou you’d not wanna shut up about it either!” Harry cries in self-defence.

“Oi, stop it this getting weird!” Louis exclaims, surging forward towards Harry and trying to cover her mouth to stop her talking. Thankfully at that moment a car horn beeps and the three of them turn round to see Jay’s monster of a car pulling up in the taxi lane.

Zayn stands up and extends her arms for a hug. With a faceful of fruity smelling hair, Louis squeezes her friend tight and thanks her again for a nice day.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, babe,” Harry says when it’s her turn to say goodbye. “Text me later, okay?”

“Yeah,” Louis agrees, and they share a chaste kiss, aware of their audience. “Love you.”

“Love you too, baby.”

♀♀

Louis has of course been looking forward to her day with Harry for weeks, and so far it hasn’t disappointed. They’re on the train, which is exciting enough as it is, but Harry won’t say what they’re doing when they reach their destination so Louis’ interest is even more piqued. 

What Harry _ will _ do, however, is kiss her in their deserted carriage. Harry has the inside seat and is sitting sideways, pushed  up against the window as Louis sits, mostly in her lap, passing quiet, soft kisses between them as the grey countryside speeds past the grimy window.

When they arrive they go straight to the café within the train station and get whipped cream topped hot chocolates, then Harry leads the way to the next stop, seemingly knowing exactly where she’s going.

“Where are we going, Haz?” Louis tries, but Harry remains tight lipped.

Eventually, Louis realises where they’re going. It’s ice skating. Better than that, outdoor ice skating with a massive pine tree adorned with fairy lights and the smell of warm cinnamon dusted doughnuts in the air. 

It’s a riot, it honestly is. Harry is a bit better at ice skating than she was at bowling, surprisingly, but she’s still not great. Louis’ sides hurt by the time they’re done, and it’s not just from where Harry was clinging onto her for dear life, it’s from the giggling and the shouting to one another. Louis finds her footing early on and manages to coax Harry away from the side, their gloved hands clasped together. As they shuffle awkwardly into the centre of the rink, Harry’s legs go rigid under her and she shrieks for Louis to stop. They end up skidding into each other and careering across the glistening surface into the barrier.

“I’ll never forget this day,” Louis says, still chuckling warmly at her newly formed memories, as they hand back their skates and step back into their shoes. Her battered old Vans feel peculiar after being elevated on blades for the last hour and a half.

The wintery sky above them is a chalky dark blue, the street lights glowing orange and the Christmas lights a rainbow of different hues. They walk through the city, exploring streets that are unfamiliar, peering in the windows of shops that they don’t have back home. 

They go for something to eat and then walk around the shops some more until their train back at six. They find a cute boutique style cake shop, the cakes tall and perfectly decorated, everything sitting on ceramic cake stands and lace doilies. 

Looking at the hand designed price tags, Louis realises it’s a place that they can look but definitely not touch. There’s a slice of a rather delectable slice of vanilla cloud cake, priced at an eye watering four pound ninety five a slice. 

She nudges Harry’s arm and hisses, “Christ, we charge one eighty a slice at Poppy’s and I thought  _ that _ was expensive!”

It’s already dark and deathly cold by the time they wander into the train station, and they must look a picture sitting on the platform with Harry’s forest green knitted scarf wrapped around both their bodies.  

They sit, hands held, in comfortable silence almost the entire way home. When they get to their station there’s a frosty sleet in the air and Anne’s car is waiting for them right outside the main exit to drive them home.

“Have a lovely day tomorrow, Lou-Lou, this is just a little something from me.” Anne says, leaving the engine running as she gets out of the car to hug Louis and slip a small gold gift bag into her hands. 

“These are for you,” Harry says once Anne has got back in the car. “No opening them until tomorrow, promise me?”

“Got it,” Louis says, her voice wobbling with the threat of the lump that has formed in her throat. “One minute past midnight.”

Harry rolls her eyes; they glint in the street light. “I hope you like them. It’s not much, but.”

“I loved today, Hazzy. Thank you.”

“Of course,” Harry smiles, leaning forward to swipe away a fledgling snowflake landed on Louis’ cheek. “Happy birthday for tomorrow. I’ll ring you when I get up.”

Louis nods. They share a quick kiss, desperate for more but aware of their surroundings. Lord knows how many pairs of eyes are watching them. “Oh! I almost forgot!”

Harry’s sudden exclamation takes Louis by surprise, and she watches with a bemused smile as Harry dashes back to the car, leaning in and rifling through her bag.

Harry returns with a small white paper bag and hands it to Louis. “You can have this now; you don’t have to wait ‘til tomorrow.”

Louis peers inside and sees a similarly small, thick white card box. She knows immediately.  

“Haz!” She exclaims, looking up and smacking Harry’s arm with her spare hand. “You little- this cake was expensive!”

“I know, but, oh well. You wanted it and I wanted you to have it so I bought it for you. Easy.”

Louis closes the bag again and gives Harry another hug. 

“I love you the most.”

“I love you more.”

♀♀

Louis wakes up at midday on her first day as an eighteen year old, relieved for once that her period doesn’t seem to be anywhere near ready to join her on time this month. She’s got texts and Facebook notifications and Snap’s piled up in her phone already and after a cooked breakfast and her choice of whatever she wants to watch on TV, the visits start.

Mark pops in for half an hour; Louis gives her estranged stepdad a one-armed hug and plays pleasantries until she opens his birthday card to her and out slips a business card for a local driving school with  _ ‘5 lessons to get you started. Love always, Dad x’ _ on the back and she leaps up, throwing herself at Mark and clinging to his neck like a koala.

“Thanks dad,” She murmurs, feeling giddy with joy.

“Of course, sweetheart,” Mark squeezes her tight. “Happy birthday, princess.”

Her grandparents arrive just after Mark leaves; they’re staying the night to be here for tomorrow’s _ other _ festivities. They have a card and a present too; a Benefit makeup set that she knows for sure her mum would’ve helped with, and a birthday card with the same business card as Mark inside, emblazoned with her nan’s spidery handwriting,  _ ‘5 more to keep you going. Lots of love, nan and grandad x’. _

“They’re all booked, Lou, the first one is on the ninth of January.” Jay announces, beaming proudly as Louis clutches the cards. 

They break for birthday cake; a delicious chocolate monstrosity with eighteen candles around the outside. Louis blows them all out in one breath. 

“Lou?” Jay calls her over while the boys are battling between each other to get the biggest slice of cake. She hands her a card and a large box wrapped in shiny paper. “Happy birthday, baby.”

Inside the card is a gift card. “I just thought it’d be something a bit more… personal than driving lessons. Not that those aren’t important, they are, but you need something for yourself too. The present, that’s just a little something fun, I hope.”

It’s a champagne glass with a rose gold 18 on. Grandad produces a bottle of champagne from somewhere and the four adults (Louis still doesn’t think it sounds right being part of the adults) toast to Louis’ birthday while the boys drink lemonade. 

“I would say here’s to your first drink, but I’m not that naive!” Jay chortles as they lift their variety of mugs and glasses up to clink them together in cheers.

Louis has saved Harry and Anne’s presents for last, even though she’s been itching to get at them all day. She’s got chocolates and perfume from Anne; the gifts within the bag individually wrapped and tied up with gold ribbon. They almost looked too good to tear open.

Tentatively she opens Harry’s next, going for the thick cylindrical one first. It’s light and doesn’t rattle when she shakes it, and she has no idea what it might be. Carefully tearing off the paper, she reveals what seems to be just a brown cardboard tube. 

“It’s an empty loo roll!” She jokes weakly as she peers down the tube like a pirate with a telescope. She sees the crease of a rolled up sheet of paper, or something, inside. She carefully coaxes it out with her finger. The sheet uncurls as she pulls it from the tube and she opens it out to be faced with her own mug staring back at her, as well as Liam’s, Zayn’s and Niall’s. 

The four of them are sitting around, the edges and background blurry but their features are in sharp, perfect clarity. Zayn is looking sideways across at Liam, Niall is just about to burst into rapturous laughter and Louis herself is grinning broadly, just about to lift her hand to her face at whatever it was that had made them laugh.

She doesn’t remember the photo being taken but her hair is much shorter than it is now so it must’ve been when they were in the lower sixth. The photo is black and white, the light and shade balancing perfectly, as obvious ode to Harry’s skills. She has tears in her eyes as she smiles down at it.

 


	3. Chapter 3

When they go back to school in January, it’s like nothing has changed. Getting up before seven almost kills Louis and by the time she and the girls are trudging into their tutor room it’s like they haven’t even been away.

She sits in her seat, the walls looming down over her, oppressive eyes hidden within the scuffed magnolia paint taunting and ridiculing her. All talk is focussed – as the teachers had promised – around exams and uni choices and Louis can practically feel Harry’s overzealous, confident attitude oozing out of her.

For a moment she really resents her.

Then, Harry shakes her hair over her shoulders and smiles in Louis’ direction and she forgets all about that.

Louis’ relieved it’s Wednesday and they’ve got a short day for their first day back, because after a heavy double geography session and media studies with the newly not-single Ed, she’s worn out.

“Mr Sheeran!” She greets him, eyebrows raised. Ed swivels around in his seat with a sheepish grin on his face, cheeks blushing red. “I can’t believe you’ve been keeping secrets! This is not on!”

“Sorry, Lou!” Ed says dreamily. “Don’t hit me, please.”

“Oh _come on_ , as if I would!”

“You would!”

“It’s okay, I only spent the _entire_ Christmas holidays crying into my pillow at the betrayal,” Louis jokes, but it’s only half a lie. It _had_ upset her, being kept in the dark, but not for any reasons she wants to divulge to Ed just yet.

“I’m sorry. I’ll get Li to buy you a new pillow.”

“Ohh, _‘Li’_ is it?” Louis teases, and Ed’s cheeks go even redder, if that’s possible. “God, when’s the wedding?”

“Shut it you,” Ed warns with a grin. “Don’t go buying a hat just yet.”

“Are you joking, I’d rock a pinstripe black suit _and_ I’d look better than you doing it.”

Ed cackles. “You’re probably not wrong, little one.”

♀♀

Louis goes to Harry’s after school, the tranquil quiet of the house exactly what she needs. They lay on top of Harry’s bed, Louis silently tracing patterns on her arm until it’s inky blue outside the window and Harry leans over to turn on the twinkling lights around the headboard.

Harry settles back down along the side of Louis’ body and brings one hand to rest on her tummy. She rubs idly and gently, the sensation soothing.

“Are your tablets working?” She asks absently.

Louis takes a moment to answer. “Well I took the pill like they said and now my skin is breaking out all over the place. It doesn’t hurt too much, though, so not sure if that’s the tablets or the pill.”

Louis feels Harry shrug her shoulders minutely. “Who knows, as long as it’s not hurting so much now?”

That seems to be the trigger, though. Late on Friday evening, Louis suddenly doubles over in bed. Her tummy is so tight and tender; it feels like her uterus has contorted itself into a balloon animal. Louis cries heartbrokenly in the shower, her tears mixing with water droplets until it’s impossible to tell what is what.

The unscheduled bleeding continues through the weekend; work on Saturday finishes abruptly at ten past three when her boss finds her crouched down against the wall hugging her knees to her chin and sobbing.

Whilst she’d sort of like a day off, by Monday things seem to be looking better and her mum, not in so many words, forces her to go into school. All day her nerves churn her stomach in anticipation of her driving lesson later. She hasn’t told anyone apart from Harry so thankfully she doesn’t have to put up with Zayn’s ‘hilarious’ teasing or Niall’s ‘helpful’ advice.

♀♀

Her first driving lesson goes… better than expected. She doesn’t actually do much driving, save for a couple of shaky starts and an impressive fifty feet up an empty street and back but it’s progress and Louis feels truly invincible when she gets home. So much so, she actually logs on to UCAS and opens the application form.

She only ever got as far as registering, and hasn’t even looked at the application form yet. Better not tell Harry that, she’d probably have a heart attack. With trepidation Louis clicks on start and waits for the screen to change.

The first load of questions are easy, even she can answer them. Name, date of birth, address, that sort of thing. They even have non-binary under the option for gender, which pleases Louis. As she clicks female, she spots the next question; sexual orientation. She clicks the drop down menu, reading through the options. Heterosexual is right there at the top, as always. At the bottom is the option to prefer not to say, and for a second she almost clicks on that, but with a deep breath she chooses lesbian/gay and moves on to the next question.

Once the easy part is over, once she has to consult her phone notes to get the code for the course she’s picked, it all starts to become a bit foggy. She gets as far as putting the code in, and it looks pathetic all on its own with four empty boxes beneath it. She feels like a failure already and she hasn’t even finished yet.

Morosely she moves onto the last section; her personal statement and reference. Miss Allbright is going forward as her reference; that part won’t be a problem, but the prospect of having to write a personal statement good enough to get her accepted into university is daunting.

Without stopping to think, Louis scrolls past it to the bottom to save her progress and get the hell out. She reads the message along the bottom about eighteen times; _‘incomplete applications will be saved until 23:59 on Monday 16_ _th_ _January. Failure to submit completed applications before that time will result in termination of your application’._

The aggressive way the words sound on the screen makes Louis shudder. Doing this hasn’t helped at all, and the confidence she had when she got home earlier has faded now. She rings Harry, desperate to hear her voice.

“Hi love,” Harry chirps. She sounds only mildly distracted, though that’s normal for Harry. “You all right?”

Louis sighs. “Hazzy, I need you to take my mind off things.”

“Why, what’s happened? I thought your driving lesson went well?”

“It did. This is something else; starts with uni- and ends in -versity.”

“Oh dear,” Harry says, pausing for just a second. “Well, guess what colour knickers I’m wearing?”

Louis snorts. “Your distraction techniques are top notch, babe.”

“Thanks,” Harry giggles. “Come on, guess what colour. Or do you want me to tell you?”

“Tell me.”

“Red.”

“Red?”

“Yep, red lace,” Harry continues. “Matching bra, too.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Wanna see?” Harry asks but she doesn’t wait for Louis to answer. In the next instance, Louis’ phone is vibrating against her ear with a FaceTime request from Harry.

She rolls her eyes but connects the call. Her end is shadowy and dark and she looks rather delightful in a hoodie with her greasy hair scraped back but Harry appears on her screen, blurry at first, looking radiant and glowing in a scoop neck black t-shirt.

“Hello,” she smiles with a wave. Louis waves back. “I can hardly see you.”

“I know, that’s ‘cause I look like an ogre.”

Harry frowns and tuts. “Be nice to yourself or I won’t show you my pants.”

Harry’s expression is stern and serious and she’s trying desperately hard to keep it up as Louis snorts at her. Eventually she cracks and starts giggling too, and Louis moves to grab her headphones to give this conversation at least a thin veil of privacy.

Harry does some sort of photographers voodoo to her phone and props it up perfectly so her entire body is in shot; perfect brightness filtering in all around her so there’s no dark spots or light flares, just her perfect self.

She wriggles out of her t-shirt in the centre of the screen, pulling it up and over her head, her curls springing up as she holds her hand out and lets the article fall to the floor out of shot. She giggles as she pads over towards the camera, some rustling on her end before she appears, closer now and at an awful angle but she still looks amazing.

She reaches for something out of shot and then comes back with a hair tie that she holds up to the camera and then proceeds to slink off again, her back to the camera as she lifts her arms above her head and ties her wild mane back.

In red lace and leggings she does a little turn and then ducks down almost out of shot before springing back up and bounding towards the camera.

There’s a lot of static and the picture breaks up for a moment as Harry’s hand covers the screen; everything goes orange and then pitch black before Harry’s bare bum cheeks appear on the screen. Scarlet red lace curves over the porcelain cambers of her bum and disappears between the cheeks. She does a little turn; cocking her hip as she goes and Louis appreciates the three sixty view. The material bows around the arc of Harry’s hips and little plunging shadows gather in the wells of her hip bones.

Harry tucks her fingers under either side of the waistband and wiggles her hips forward, static rustling in Louis’ earphones as she does, before she erupts in laughter.

“I dunno how people do this, it’s so cringe!” She exclaims, collapsing into giggles and grabbing the phone off the side. Louis gets motion sickness watching the screen jiggle from side to side until Harry finally settles on her bed, her awkward bun sticking up on the top of her head like a curly pineapple.

“Well, thanks for distracting me anyway,” Louis says once she’s still. “I didn’t find it cringe.”

They talk for a bit longer, Harry lowering the camera every once in a while as they talk, keeping a straight face and not breaking her concentration as she slips the occasional nip to Louis.

♀♀

The distraction is only temporary though. On Friday, Miss Allbright has got ‘UNI DEADLINE’ written in big blue and red letters on the whiteboard when they arrive first thing, and Louis’ heart sinks lower than her shoes at the sight.

“Good morning everyone!” Miss Allbright greets them, far too enthusiastically. “It’s officially the last Friday before uni applications are due! If you haven’t already done it - which you really should have - you have until one minute before midnight on Monday evening to get them submitted to UCAS. If _anyone_ has any questions at all you _must_ get them asked today. This is your _last_ chance, guys!”

Louis groans internally as a buzz of chatter flits around the classroom between her peers. It all sounds so final, so intense; like if she doesn’t apply for uni the world will end, or at 00:00 on Tuesday she’ll explode on the spot.

“Use your resources guys,” Miss Allbright continues, standing up and parading around the classroom passionately. “Make the most of the advisors we have here, before it’s too late. You don’t want to be stressing last thing on Monday night, that’s how mistakes happen. This is your future guys, whatever you decide is fine but it’s important!”

“You’ll be all right, Tommo,” Niall supplies, tearing Louis out of her bubble of mild panic.

“Eh?” She blurts out, her mind still stuck somewhere around ‘before it’s too late’.

“I said you’ll be all right, you an’ Harry, lovebirds together at Manchester.”

Louis feels sick at the prospect. Niall expects her to go to uni. Miss Allbright expects her to go to uni. So does her mum, her nan, Harry, probably Liam and Zayn too. She hasn’t spoken to Mark for a while but probably him too.

“Yeah,” She mumbles weakly, aiming for non-committal. “What do we have first period?”

Niall frowns, confused for a moment at the seemingly stupid question. “You’ve got media studies. Double English then study.”

Louis nods. “Okay, thanks.”

Then, she’s literally saved by the bell so she just plasters on a fake smile and tells Niall she’ll see her later. Harry runs up alongside her as they filter out of the classroom and the two of them plus Zayn walk together as far as they can before Harry and Zayn have to break off to go to their graphic design class.

They reconvene after class for their short break, crisps and snacks coming out, and then they all file into the English block for double English.

“Hey girls,” Niall chirps as they sit down and pull out their books. “I’ve just noticed, it’s Friday the thirteenth!”

“Don’t I bloody know it,” Louis sighs miserably. Louis’ mood is most appropriate for such a feared, unfortunate date in the calendar. The only thing that could make it worse is if-

“Morning all, we’re going to do a quick mock exam today!”

Louis’ eyes are travelling heavenwards before she even realises. A low mumble of disappointment rumbles around the room and they spend the next hour and a half in completely uninterrupted silence.

♀♀

They all stick together through lunch and then into study period too. Liam and Harry sit together with their biology textbooks scattered all over the table and their heads together discussing some sort of organic system, Niall picks geography and Zayn joins Louis on the computers furiously typing up her essay for graphic design.

The school computers are notoriously slow, and by the time Internet Explorer finally loads Louis has talked herself out of logging on to UCAS five times. She does it though, puts her stupid username and pre-determined password in and then stares at her application lifelessly.

It’s completed now, all she has to do is electronically sign it, date it and tick to confirm all the information is accurate. It’s the last step, it’s ninety eight percent complete, but she just can’t bring herself to do it.

She’s got the university website minimised in another tab, and she flicks over to it mindlessly. She pictures the LGBTQ society leaflet sitting crumpled at the bottom of her school bag; she’d grown an affinity for it and kept it with her even after basically completely dismissing everything else.

She scrolls through the pages, clicking tabs without really looking at what she’s reading. There are pictures of people looking happy and fulfilled and receiving the education of a lifetime. Louis can picture Harry fitting in perfectly with all these enthusiasts. Herself, not so much. She doesn’t have a place in between Rachel with the purple t-shirt and Tom with the long hair. Louis with the blue eyes doesn’t belong there.

“What you looking at, Tommo?” Zayn asks, taking a break from typing and leaning over to peer in at the screen. “Oh, uni. Cool.”

Louis hums with disinterested agreement. “Have you submitted?”

“Yeah,” Zayn says, turning back to her own screen. “You?”

Louis waits for a beat, and with her silence Zayn turns around again. Timidly she admits, “Not yet.”

“What you waiting for? I thought Manchester with Hazza was a dead cert.”

“Yeah, yeah it is.” Louis says again, unwilling to admit even to herself how much it feels like she’s lying. “Just… doubting meself, y’know? It’s such a big step.”

“I know,” Zayn sympathises. “Sorta don’t feel qualified to make such big decisions yet, do you?”

“Ironic, considering we’re the two oldest ones.” Louis says with a small smile as she shakes her head.

Zayn snorts humourlessly. She turned eighteen yesterday too, in a truly unspectacular mid-week term-time fashion. “Don’t worry about it ‘til Sunday night, half an hour before deadline. That’s Auntie Zaynie’s advice.”

Louis smirks. “Thanks. Sound advice.”

♀♀

It takes less than a minute for the dread to settle in upon waking up on Sunday morning.

She figures that she’s had a good run; this weekend has been nice going shopping and then Nando’s – Niall’s idea – for Zayn’s birthday yesterday. She’s stayed the night at Harry’s and they’d had a nice night and even nicer mutual orgasms under the duvet, but by this evening she’s going to have made the biggest decision of her life to date and she still doesn’t know how to deal with that.

She’s pretty much made up her mind, but then every time she looks at Harry she gets a knot in her throat and a tight feeling in her chest and she changes her mind back again.

Louis carries that feeling with her all day. Harry’s support is unwavering, but Louis can tell when eventually her patience and understanding starts to wear a bit thin.

They’ve had the UCAS website open all day on Harry’s laptop; once every few hours or so Louis goes back to it to be greeted by a session expired message. She keeps logging back in, knowing that she’s just going to let the session expire again.

“Lou?” Louis hears Harry’s voice but she doesn’t respond immediately. She doesn’t want to respond at all. She knows what’s coming. “Lou, babe, listen to me, please?”

“I- I am listening,” Louis murmurs weakly, turning to face Harry a few beats later.

“Have you made up your mind yet, love?”

Regrettably, Louis shakes her head. “I don’t know what to do, Haz.”

Harry’s face falls, worry teasing her pretty green eyes. Louis feels like she’s drowning in her guilt.

“You have to do what you feel is right for you, Lou-Lou. Nobody else’s opinion matters, not even mine - _especially_ not mine.”

“It does though,” Louis murmurs, her eyes burning with the acidic sting of tears. “You matter the most to me, Harry.”

“You know I want you to come to Manchester,” Harry says tactfully after a short pause. “But I want you to be happy, more than anything. Whether…” Harry takes a deep breath and Louis catches a tear slipping onto her cheek. “Whether that’s with me or without me.”

“I don’t want to lose you,” Louis whispers, her broken heart cracking and bleeding into her chest cavity, staining her rib cage and flooding her organs. “But I can’t come with you either.”

A weight lifts off Louis’ solar plexus at the confession, but she doesn’t feel any better for it. Harry’s hand trembles as she wipes the tears from under her eyes. She’s got her lips pressed tightly together and she’s nodding, over and over.

“I can’t face uni, Harry, I can’t. I want to be dead set on it so badly, but I just… I can’t spend all that time and money on something that I’m not one hundred percent sure about, you know? And I can’t- I can’t even _think_ about not being near you. Not being able to see you whenever I want. That’s what’s making this decision so _fucking_ hard!”

“I understand,” she says, high pitched and wobbly. More tears spill out and her eyes are glassy and red. “I understand, I do. I love you, Lou-Lou. So much. But I get it.”

“I love you so much. This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.” Louis’ voice cracks on the last bit.

Harry reaches out and takes Louis’ hands, her skin saturated with her tears. “I’m sorry, Lou, I’m so sorry for pushing you about this.”

Louis shakes her head vehemently, sniffing back a sob to no avail. “No,” She repeats over and over, fresh tears shedding as she tries to find the words. “It’s not your fault, Harry, I swear. I- oh God, I don’t want to do this. I really don’t want to choose either way.”

Harry looks torn as she mumbles, “We don’t have long, Lou-Lou.”

Those words sound so final, so defeatist. Like a stab in the heart, Louis bursts into tears again, unable to stop them. She’s rambling, she can hear herself, but she can’t make sense of it and the only thing she’s aware of is the constant presence of Harry’s hands in hers, and Harry’s own incoherent, panicked sobs.

While this is happening, there’s a soft knock on the door that Louis barely hears. She looks up as the door opens slowly; she doesn’t have time to collect herself and realise what’s happening before she comes face to face, surprisingly, not just with Anne but with her own mum too.

“Mum?” She echoes in confusion as Jay rushes towards her, worry etched into her expression.

“What’s happened, baby, what’s wrong?”

Louis watches as Harry mournfully lets go of her hands and shuffles backwards onto her bed. Anne sits down next to her, wrapping an arm around Harry’s shoulders and looking over at Louis and Jay sadly.

Jay kneels down in front of her, reaching up to cradle her face in her hands. “Whatever it is you can tell me, baby.”

“I-” Louis falters, her eyes skimming over to Harry. She’s still watery eyed and sad looking. “I don’t want to go to uni, mum.”

“Oh Louis-”

“I just- I don’t know what I want to do, I can’t go all that way and not love it! I’m losing everything this way and I-”

“It’s okay, baby, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

“You won’t lose me, Lou-Lou!” Harry wails, her face blotchy as she cries desperately into her hands.

The mums shush their daughters; the four of them in Harry’s room, it’s never felt smaller. Louis’ own sobs die down to the occasional sniffle, and Anne’s voice softly soothes Harry as she stares into space with tears tracking down her cheeks.

“Come on, love,” Anne says once Harry has calmed down. “Let’s give Lou and Jay a moment.”

It feels strange, turfing Harry out of her own bedroom to sit and use it as her own personal therapy office, but Harry follows Anne out without fuss. She leaves Louis with a lingering look and the words _I love you_ mouthed silently.

Anne closes the door gently behind them and Jay gets to her feet. She settles on the bed next to Louis and they sit side by side in silence, Louis’ hands gathered in her lap and her head bowed.

“How did you know?” Louis asks quietly some time later. “That this had happened?”

“Anne called me, she could hear you two in here getting upset,” Jay explains. “Lou, please don’t feel bad about this. It’s okay sweetheart.”

“Would I be letting you down?”

Jay shakes her head. “No, not in a million years could you ever let me down, Loubear.”

“Am I making the right choice?”

“Only you can know that, Lou.” Jay says. “All I can do is support you in whatever choice you make.”

“I don’t know.”

“What are you planning on doing instead of university?”

Louis shrugs. “I don’t know that either. I’ll get a job, I suppose.”

“Do you think it’ll be easy?”

Louis pauses. “I would hope so.”

“Do you think it’ll be easier than spending three years and thousands of pounds doing something you’re not one hundred percent committed to?”

Louis falters and turns to look at her mum. Jay is smiling back at her encouragingly.

“I will support you as much as I can, Lou. If you don’t want to go to uni, I don’t want you unhappy just because you think it’s the right thing to do.”

“What about Harry?” Louis asks, because she can’t lie to her mum that it isn’t on her mind. “I’m gonna lose Harry, probably, because of this.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do,” Louis insists. “There’s so much more out there for her than just me and this little town. I don’t want to leave her but I don’t want to go with her either. I’m so confused.”

“Saying goodbye to your friends will be hard, but saying goodbye to Harry will be harder. There’s no use sugar coating it. But I think that if you’re worried Harry will forget about you, you’re not giving her nearly enough credit.”

“You think so?”

“I can’t predict the future, babes. I can’t know for sure that nothing will happen. But I don’t think for one moment that Harry will break your heart intentionally. It will be tough, but there’s no reason why you won’t be able to make things work. Manchester isn’t a million miles away, is it?”

Louis shakes her head. “No, s’pose not.”

“Talk to Harry about your relationship, it’s the only way. If you’re dead set on not going to university, we’ll cancel your application and we’ll just focus on your exams then forget it all for the summer, okay? If you decide at the last minute that you do want to give it a go, I’ll be there every step of the way. But only you can make that decision, Lou.”

Louis considers this; mulls it all over in her head. “Yeah,” She accepts scratchily. “I- I think I’ve made up my mind.”

Jay smiles and squeezes her shoulders. “I’ll support you whatever you decide.”

“Thanks, mummy.” Louis mumbles, sniffing back a sob although her tears have dried up now. She just feels hollow and numb. She doesn’t feel the relief that she’d expected to feel by finally admitting her demons out loud. Not when things are still under a question mark like they are.

Suddenly she realises. “Wait, where are the boys?”

“At home,” Jay says with a grimace. “I’ve left them with strict instructions not to use _any_ electricals, not to attempt to cook _any_ food, and not to go _anywhere_ near the kitchen sink.”

Louis rolls her eyes. “I’m sorry for dragging you out here.”

“Not at all,” Jay dismisses. “I called in to Sheila next door so she is keeping an eye out for me. Surprisingly it’s not even the twins I’m most concerned about, it’s the other two! I’d better get back, though. You want a lift or you staying a bit longer?”

“I’ll stay, if Anne doesn’t mind. I need to talk to Haz.”

“Of course,” Jay nods, getting up. “Come along, we better go and show our faces. Plaster on a smile, Lou, even though you’re feeling sad. It’ll help.”

Louis tries her best to smile as she follows her mum downstairs to where Anne and Harry are waiting with bated breath in the living room. Harry is sitting with the cat in her lap, absently rubbing her grey fur and staring at the floor chewing her lip. Anne is on the other sofa looking like she’s about to burst out of her skin.

“Louis, are you okay love?” Anne asks, leaping to her feet when they step into the room.

“Yeah- I, yeah. Feel a bit better now. Thank you.”

“Of course, sweetheart.” Anne smiles. “Mum cuddles make everything better don’t they?”

Louis sniffs as she nods, and Jay chuckles softly. “I’m going to get back to the boys, Annie. Is it okay if Louis stays on a bit? I think the girls need to have a chat.”

“Of course, I’ll do tea, hey? Then bring her back later on, is that all right?”

Jay thanks Anne and heads off in a flurry of cheek kisses and hugs. Anne disappears upstairs to change the beds so Louis and Harry slip into the conservatory. They settle on the sofa under a fleece blanket, the murky January evening dark on the other side of the glass panels.

“So…” Harry begins; Louis admires her bravery. “Have you made up your mind you’re definitely not coming?”

Louis takes a deep breath, preparing herself. “Yeah,” She finally gets out. “I’m… I’m gonna stay here and look for a job after exams are done.”

Harry nods almost imperceptibly. “Okay…” She whispers, and then she’s silent for almost a full minute. “You’re not finishing with me, are you?”

“No,” Louis says instantly. “Not if… not if you’ll still have me. I don’t want to lose you any more than I’m already going to in September.”

“Of course I still want you,” Harry says. “I never won’t want you.”

Louis just smiles because Harry can’t make a statement like that with absolute confidence that it’ll always be true and Louis’ rational side knows that, but she doesn’t want to think any further about that right now.

“We’ve got ‘til September. That’s still nine months. Then, like my mum said, Manchester isn’t that far away.”

“No,” Harry agrees. “I can come back on weekends or you could come to me. There’s half term and summer break and things like that. It won’t be that bad. You’ll get a job and learn to drive and then we can see each other whenever we like. I’d give you petrol money, obviously.”

Louis rolls her eyes. “You don’t have to do that, you doughnut.”

“I’ll be so proud of you,” Harry says with a dreamy smile. “Whatever you end up doing, I know you’ll smash it.”

She likes Harry’s plan though; it seems doable. Three years really isn’t that long when you take out weekends and school holidays. She wants to believe Harry that she’ll roll out of sixth form and straight into a good job, but it sounds too good to be true.

“You think it’ll be that easy?”

Harry pauses then shrugs. “Maybe not. But it’ll be all right either way. It always works out.”

 

♀♀

 

 _"The passenger he rides and he rides. He sees things from under glass, he looks through his window side. He sees the things that he knows are his, he sees the bright and hollow sky. He sees the city sleep at night, he sees the stars are out tonight. And all of it is yours and mine, and all of it is yours and mine so let's ride and ride and ride and ride._ "

**-The Passenger, Iggy Pop**

 

 

 

  
  
_Fin._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve loved writing this; I hope somebody out there likes it! I’ve written some stuff here that I have never tried to put into words before, and that was an experience. I write all over the place and ‘edit’ my work myself, so if there are glaring errors I do apologise. I’d love to hear from anyone who wants to leave a comment at the end!
> 
> I will miss these girls; they’ve been a pleasure to write. I will most likely write future parts to this verse, even if it’s just for self-indulgent catharsis!
> 
> If you’d like to reblog the [fic post](http://yourpricelessadvice.tumblr.com/post/173302597249/yours-mine-harrylouis-40k-explicit) on Tumblr, that’d be smashing!
> 
> Amy x
> 
> PS - [vanilla cloud cake](https://www.peggyporschen.com/vanilla-cloud-320) – dreamy!


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